A senior Sudanese church leader says his country’s people believe they “know how to die, but don’t know how to live,” in an exclusive interview with en.
Rafat Samir, Chairman of the Sudan Evangelical Community Council, spoke about the continuing conflict and the impact it is having on Sudan’s roughly 2 million Christians. The war has entered its third year. Having displaced over 11 million citizens and decimated national infrastructure, it shows no signs of ending anytime soon.
He said: “Unfortunately, the war has become regional and religious. We have all kinds of militias fighting; Islamic fundamentalists who fight for the country of Islam, dark-skinned militias who fight for money or dignity, and various others are forming. In every area, the SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces) or RSF (Rapid Support Forces) are recruiting them and giving them guns to defend their areas. It’s hard to see how it can end.”
Samir detailed that the conflict is the latest part of a “long journey of wars” for many Christians, who have previously fled other conflicts in their Nuba Mountains homelands and are now fleeing again for safety.
Describing life on the ground, he said: “In the war zones we don’t play any part [in the fighting]. This causes us problems because we are labelled as supporting other parties and we have been labelled by radical Islamists as cowards. We are told the country is for Muslims and for people from an Arab background.
“On the other side are Christians who run to camps as refugees. Many have reportedly been excluded from the distribution of relief and supplies and, in many places in north Sudan, we are not allowed to have church meetings or prayers as a congregation. People say: ‘We have never had a church here and we won’t allow you to have one now.’ In many places, we are treated like second-degree citizens.”
While life has become particularly difficult for Christians who have fled to north Sudan, there are areas where hostility is lower. Samir detailed how churches in such areas are supporting the humanitarian effort: “In safe cities, all our schools and churches are being used as shelters for displaced people. I visit many Christian homes in these cities and they are hosting five or six families and they share one meal a day, with only the host working to support about 30 people. It’s difficult for them.”
When asked what message he would give to the warring factions, Samir said: “We have been approached by the government and they tried to recruit Christians [to fight in] their war but as a church we say that we support life and will never support the killing of our community.
“For a long time [warring] parties didn’t want to listen to what we were saying. They don’t like our message and Christians were labelled as the opposition because the Islamic government only understand war and killing.
“They are not representing the people, which is why they don’t care about them. We always say that in Sudan we know how to die, but we don’t know how to live. It’s easy here to kill somebody or to plan for your own death.
Reconciliation
When asked what the church’s role is as the war rages on, Samir reflected: “We believe the church’s role now is to reconcile and rebuild communities, because as long as there are no principles of law we will continue in this circle of evil for a long time.
“Our churches are starting reconciliation programmes for many tribes to learn how we can coexist together. We have also started trauma healing programmes and are working to restore [people’s] faith because many are asking where the Lord has left them, which is normal in such cases. It’s a huge challenge.”
