Another Christian community at risk in Africa as extremists and war take their toll

Many of Sudan's Christians live in the Nuba Mountains, part of the Kordofan region. 

Rafat Samir, general secretary of the Sudan Evangelical Alliance, told Fox News Digital that the "Nuba Mountains now, where the majority of our church members are coming from, is under siege and  bombing every day for the last six months or seven months. Last week, after Christmas, they bombed our church, hospital and school."

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital, "Since the April 2023 outbreak of conflict in Sudan, we have witnessed significant backsliding in Sudan's overall respect for fundamental freedoms, including religious freedom. This backsliding especially impacts Sudan's oppressed ethnic and religious populations, including Christians." 

In a Fox News Digital report last year, Christians were said to be eating grass to survive. Samir says the situation is even more bleak in 2026.

"Even the grass is gone now," he said.

Ideologically, Sudan's Christians face a hostile future, Samir said. 

"Both sides in the civil conflict are daughters of the Islamist movement in Sudan, and the Islamic ideology of both of them is to not have tolerance for others," Samir said. "They consider everyone different from them is against them. The Christian is considered their enemy as part of their religious ideology, and opposing them is their religious duty.

"So, whoever does something to harm Christians is considered favorable to the law or to Allah. The country is getting back to the dark ages."

"The suffering of civilians has reached catastrophic levels, with millions lacking food, water and medical care. Every day of continued fighting costs more innocent lives. The war in Sudan is an enduring threat to regional stability."

The U.N. says fighting is escalating in Kordofan, with U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk telling reporters in Port Sudan Jan. 18, "I am very worried that the atrocity crimes committed during and after the takeover of El Fasher are at grave risk of repeating themselves in the Kordofan region, where the conflict has been rapidly escalating since late October.

"The Kordofan states are extremely volatile," he continued, "with relentless military engagements, heavy shelling, drone bombardments and airstrikes causing widespread destruction and collapse of essential services."

Wahba said that "while the United States remains kinetically active across neighboring theaters, it is unlikely to wade directly into Sudan's civil war."

"For now," Wahba continued, "U.S. policy is centered on convening regional stakeholders and pressing for alignment among them, while prioritizing humanitarian corridors, aid delivery and coordination with partners willing to host talks. Washington is acting as a facilitator, not an enforcer."

"This posture reflects both constraint and caution. Sudan presents few reliable leverage points, no unified opposition partner, and (there's) little appetite in Congress or the White House for another open-ended entanglement in a fragmented civil war. The result is a policy that remains fluid and reactive, and is shaped less by strategy than by crisis management," she said.

Despite everything, the Sudan Evangelical Alliance's Samir has hope.

"The Holy Spirit is moving and God's hand is working in our country," Samir said. " I can tell you through this evil, this darkness, the light of love of our God is lighting in many hearts. The devil is stealing people to death every day. We pray that (they) let us Christians live for one day more, for one day more to proclaim Jesus's message."