Catholic bishop attacked, left for dead in Sudan

Members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan severely wounded a Catholic bishop over the weekend (Nov. 30-Dec. 1), shortly after soldiers from the rival Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) had harassed and robbed him, sources said.

The RSF militants left for dead Yunan Tombe Trille Kuku Andali, bishop of the El-Obeid Diocese in North Kurdufan state, after beating him as he and a church deacon returned from Renk, a town in South Sudan near the border with Sudan, reported ACI Africa. The deacon, identified only as Joseph, was also beaten.

“On the side of Rapid Forces, I was given countless heavy blows on the neck, forehead, on my face and two sides of my head,” Tombe wrote to Bishop Edward Hiiboro Kussala of South Sudan’s Catholic Diocese of Tombura-Yambio, according to ACI Africa, adding that he could not move his jaws. “I can’t bite food. Together with deacon [Joseph], we missed narrowly martyrdom when one leader said that is enough.”

Tombe wrote that they were first harassed by soldiers from the SAF, which is locked in a military conflict with the RSF that has left 61,000 people dead, including 26,000 killed directly from the violence, according to a study released in November by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Sudan Research Group.

“From the side of the army [SAF], some little cash in USD was taken on pretext that I was carrying the forbidden hard currency,” Tombe wrote, according to ACI Africa. Catholic Radio Network (CRN) reported that Matthew Remijo Adam, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Wau, said the SAF soldiers also beat Tombe when they robbed him.

Remijo told CRN that the RSF militant severely beat Tombe on the head and neck, adding that the RSF initially intended to execute him before one member persuaded them to release him.

Tombe was returning to Sudan from a Nov. 24 Eucharistic Congress and celebrations in Juba marking 50 years of the Catholic Church hierarchy in Sudan and South Sudan, CRN reported.

Remijo appealed to South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit to urge the Sudanese government to ensure Tombe’s safety or, if necessary, facilitate his relocation from the diocese.

Tombe, who has been vocal in his appeals for peace in Sudan, narrowly escaped death on April 20, 2023, when rockets struck the Mary Queen of Africa Cathedral and priests’ residence where he and other clergy were praying, according to ACI Africa. He has served in the El Obeid diocese for more than 30 years.

Fighting in Sudan between the paramilitary RSF and the SAF broke out five days earlier, on April 15, 2023. The conflict between the RSF and the SAF, which had shared military rule in Sudan following an October 2021 coup, has terrorized civilians in Khartoum and elsewhere, killing tens of thousands and displacing 11.2 million people within and beyond Sudan’ borders, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency.

The SAF’s Gen. Abdelfattah al-Burhan and his then-vice president, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, were in power when civilian parties in March 2023 agreed on a framework to re-establish a democratic transition the next month, but disagreements over military structure torpedoed final approval.

Burhan sought to place the RSF – a paramilitary outfit with roots in the Janjaweed militias that had helped former strongman Omar al-Bashir put down rebels – under the regular army’s control within two years, while Dagolo would accept integration within nothing fewer than 10 years.

Both military leaders have Islamist backgrounds while trying to portray themselves to the international community as pro-democracy advocates of religious freedom.

Christian sites have been targeted since the conflict began.

In Open Doors’ 2024 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, Sudan was ranked No. 8, up from No. 10 the previous year, as attacks by non-state actors continued and religious freedom reforms at the national level were not enacted locally.

Sudan had dropped out of the top 10 for the first time in six years when it first ranked No. 13 in the 2021 World Watch List.

Following two years of advances in religious freedom in Sudan after the end of the Islamist dictatorship under Bashir in 2019, the specter of state-sponsored persecution returned with the military coup of Oct. 25, 2021. After Bashir was ousted from 30 years of power in April 2019, the transitional civilian-military government had managed to undo some sharia (Islamic law) provisions. It outlawed the labeling of any religious group “infidels” and thus effectively rescinded apostasy laws that made leaving Islam punishable by death.

With the Oct. 25, 2021 coup, Christians in Sudan feared the return of the most repressive and harsh aspects of Islamic law. Abdalla Hamdok, who had led a transitional government as prime minister starting in September 2019, was detained under house arrest for nearly a month before he was released and reinstated in a tenuous power-sharing agreement in November 2021.

Hamdock had been faced with rooting out longstanding corruption and an Islamist “deep state” from Bashir’s regime – the same deep state that is suspected of rooting out the transitional government in the Oct. 25, 2021 coup.

The U.S. State Department in 2019 removed Sudan from the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) that engage in or tolerate “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom” and upgraded it to a watch list. Sudan had previously been designated as a CPC from 1999 to 2018.

In December 2020, the State Department removed Sudan from its Special Watch List.

The Christian population of Sudan is estimated at 2 million, or 4.5 percent of the total population of more than 43 million.