Religious Rights Still Blocked In Sudan, Christian Leaders Say

Officials in Sudan have shown signs of increasing religious freedom, but Christians in the country say roadblocks remain to constructing churches and regaining confiscated properties since the new transitional government took power in September 2019.

Officials in Sudan’s Ministry of Religious Affairs and Endowments have said the process of issuing licenses for new church construction has begun, but Christian leaders have noticed how it is nothing but a political propaganda. Christian leaders have also been frustrated in their demand that properties confiscated during the regime of ousted President Omar al-Bashir be returned. Church leaders have sought their return through requests to the Ministry of Religious Affairs. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which visited officials in Sudan in February 2020, determined that “the transitional government has ended the former regime’s most egregious forms of religious repression and reaffirmed its commitment to substantive change that is according to its latest report.