Church Attack in Sudan

Recently we found out that the Anglican Cathedral in Khartoum, Sudan was attacked by police during the New Year's Eve service two months ago. We learned about this not from a newspaper report, the BBC or the internet, but from our friend, who had gone home to Sudan from Jordan to spend Christmas with his family for the first time in six years--and who just happened to be in the church when the attack happened.

First, he said, two canisters of tear gas were fired into the front veranda of the church. Then, the police stormed into the church and fired two more. Finally, as the 500 or so people inside were panicking, they fired still two more. Our friend was sitting in the front of the church near the pulpit--although he usually would sit in the back, he said--where everyone of course rushed to escape the gas. Those in the front, he said, scrambled to open the doors to the outside there, taking care to make sure the crowd left the building in single file to avoid trampling. In the end several people incurred only minor injuries--although according to our friend one person needed to have his hand amputated because of major burns incurred. A canister did land near the Christian vice-president of the country who was in attendance, and our friend had to spend some time wiping away the tears produced by the gas.

According to our friend, the official explanation from the police for this attack--an explanation confirmed in this article--was that a fight had broken out near the church in which someone was stabbed. The stabber--according to the police--then ran into the church, and the police followed. Our friend believes the story was made up--an excuse to attack the church. After all, he said, no stabber was ever found, nor was any stabbing victim, something relayed in an article on this Christian news website. Even if the incident in question really did occur, storming the church with tear gas in order to flush out the attacker seems to be a bizarre tactic. Of course, in researching this attack online we discovered that similar attacks by the police on Christians in Khartoum have taken place in the past, one of which is detailed here in this release from Amnesty International.

The Bishop of Khartoum discussed the attack in a statement to other Anglican churches around the world. The incident is a reminder of the tenuous position of Christians in Sudan, and--along with the past destruction of the south during the long civil war and the current pillaging of the people and places of Darfur in the west--is another example of the obstinacy of the Sudanese government. It is also probably another reason why so many of our Sudanese friends here say that going home from Jordan--a country with its own challenges--will be a difficult transition.