Damaged Christian School Reopens in Sudan
By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent
Khartoum, Sudan (Worthy News)– Studies have resumed at a Khartoum Bible school that a Muslim mob had set fire to in April.
The students and staff of Gerif West Bible School restarted classes as anti-Christian messages blared from a local mosque’s loudspeaker.
We will never forgive Christians for not being Muslims, the mosque’s imam declared.
Back in April, Islamists shouting “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great(er than my enemy),” broke through the school’s wall with a bulldozer and set fire to the compound, damaging a clinic and living quarters.
According to Morning Star News, the fire destroyed library books, including 50 cartons of Bibles; the mob also damaged school furniture and stole college funds from a school safe, yet during all this mayhem, police just stood by watching the destruction, according to a statement from the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church.
The sheik who led the attack, Muhammad Abdelkrim, told his coreligionists not to tolerate Christians, thus inspiring local Muslims to wrest control of the school’s land by claiming that Christian institutions shouldn’t be permitted in a purely Islamic state after the secession of South Sudan last July.
In April, Islamists armed with an approval from the Commissioner of Khartoum to take a portion of the school’s property came to the Christian compound with a bulldozer, threatening to demolish it.
“The church was not informed (of the commissioner’s decision),” according to an SPEC statement. “It is not the mandate of the Commissioner of Khartoum to allocate a private property to others.”
The Commissioner based his approval on the unfounded assumption that the land belonged to South Sudanese Christians who were no longer citizens of Sudan following its secession in July.
However, SPEC leaders had documents proving the church’s ownership of the land, so police were able to induce the mob to disperse, but with the government’s unwavering support, Islamists will continue to forcefully lay claim to Christian lands in Sudan.