In a surprise move, Sudan has released shipments of Bibles long held in port, including one detained nearly six years ago, according to the head of the Bible Society in Sudan.
The Revd Ismail Abdurahman Kenani, Khartoum-based director of the Bible Society in Sudan, said port authorities had been delaying several shipments of Bibles in Port Sudan, on the Red Sea. Besides the shipment detained after Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir began a crack-down on Christian institutions in 2012, another one detained a little over three years ago was among those released in early August, Kenani said.
Critical shortage of Bibles
The estimated 2 million Christians in Sudan have endured a critical shortage of Arabic-language Bibles. ‘We are even planning to put an order for another shipment, because the need is still great here,’ he said.
Port authorities have long given no official explanation for detaining the shipments, though one official told the Bible Society they were held up because they exceeded the limit of one container at a time. Intentional bureaucratic barriers also seem to have been erected. Kenani said: ‘We came to learn that proper documents for the shipments were intentionally misplaced by one of the officers of the port authority.’
Following the secession of South Sudan in 2011, Bashir vowed to adopt a stricter version of sharia (Islamic law) and recognise only Islamic culture and the Arabic language. Church leaders said Sudanese authorities have demolished or confiscated churches and limited Christian literature on the pretext that most Christians have left the country.
