Christian leaders in South Sudan have issued urgent calls for peace after the Bishop of Morobo and his driver survived a violent abduction by armed insurgents on Monday, Christian Today (CT) reports. The kidnappers claimed to be members of the National Salvation Front, a militant group opposed to the South Sudanese government.
Attacks by “Islamic extremists” in a border region of South Sudan killed dozens of people and left “huge numbers of Christian villagers with nothing but their clothes,” aid workers told Worthy News.
Islamic extremists killed people in an attack on a Christian community in South Sudan earlier this month, burning down 57 homes in the same attack, Barnabas Fund reports.
Pope Francis has offered condolences to victims’ families after two Catholic nuns were shot and killed along a highway in South Sudan.
Hundreds of Christians have been slaughtered by Islamic terrorists in at least three African countries in recent weeks, CBN News reports. Christian communities in Nigeria, South Sudan, and Cameroon have been targeted by terrorists from different groups, including Boko Haram and Fulani militants.
Christian aid groups, along with pesticide-wielding UN troops, are deploying to eastern Africa to fight a locust swarm that experts say is the worst to hit the region in 70 years and could grow by 500 times between now and June.
A judge in Sudan ruled yesterday that there was enough evidence to charge two South Sudanese pastors with crimes that carry the death penalty.
South Sudan announced today it would withdraw its troops from the disputed border territory its forces recently acquired, thereby avoiding an all-out war with neighboring Sudan.
Christian aid workers warned of a looming “all-out war” between Sudan and South Sudan with thousands of Christians in both nations seeking shelter.
Thousands of Christians stripped of their citizenship are now being forced out of Sudan in the wake of the South’s secession back in January 2011.
Christians in Sudan and newly created South Sudan face possible detention, beatings and even death amid a “deteriorating humanitarian situation” with thousands of people being killed this year alone, aid workers and Christians said in statements obtained by Worthy News Sunday, January 22.
Amid all the news over the world’s newest nation, South Sudan, Carl Moeller of Open Doors fears something was overlooked.
“We are rejoicing that there are increased freedoms in the South,” said Moeller, “but we have to ask the question: What about the Christians in the North?”
Sudanese civilians living in the Western Nile Region of Southern Sudan have been deliberately targeted and displaced by Islamic Government Forces and militia (see “U.S. condemns abuses against civilians in Sudan” Associated Press, 2/11/03). Many have fled to the town of Nimule, where Operation Nehemiah operates a newly acquired hospital.
WASHINGTON (BP)–The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom received in its first hearing a variety of recommendations on halting the religious persecution and civil war in Sudan, but there seemed to be widespread agreement on one sentiment — the United States can do more.