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Sudan: Christians concerned for security after military coup; “it is very important to pray”

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Christians in Sudan have renewed concern for their safety and religious freedom following Monday’s military coup in which the head of Sudan’s transitional Sovereign Council, Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, arrested civilian prime minister Abdalla Hamdok, his wife, and other officials, Christianity Today (CT) reports.

The Sudanese army had supported the 2018 revolution which ousted 30-year dictator Omar al-Bashir, but tensions between military and civilian leadership had been rising over the country’s economic woes and other issues pertaining to military oversight.

The ousting of Bashir and the installment of the transitional civilian government had offered hope for the previously beleaguered and persecuted Christian community of Sudan, as the new leadership promised to remove Islam as the national religion, cancel the death penalty for apostasy and otherwise give believers cause for encouragement.

In the face of current developments, however, Christians await to see what the attitude of the new leadership will be toward them – and to their co-nationals, “A window of opportunity towards religious freedom in Sudan could be about to close,” Paul Robinson, CEO of Release International said in a statement. “We need only glance back a few years to Sudan under a hard-line Islamist government, to be genuinely concerned about what Sudan could be like again.”

Speaking on the condition of anonymity for security reasons, a source told CT: “All I can really say is that it is very important to pray for peace and security for all in Sudan.”