Christians in Sudan are confronted with hunger, misery and terror every day. The new one Open Doors World Watch list for 2026, which ranks among the worst countries in the world for persecution of Christians, placed the country at number 4, one place higher than in last year’s report.
There are an estimated two million Christians in the conflict-ridden northeast African country. Sudan’s civil war has already passed the 1,000-day mark, with a reported 150,000 people killed and more than 13 million displaced. Christians have lived in Sudan since the end of the first century.
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Sudanese pastors’ wives study the Bible at a Christian conference in the Nuba Mountains. (Open doors)
To add to the misery, a report from MEMRIEleven Sudanese Christians were killed as they took part in a procession to their church for a Christmas Day religious celebration by a drone operated by the Sudanese government forces, according to Christian Daily International. 18 others were injured in the attack. MEMRI reported that the SAF is supported by the Muslim Brotherhood.
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Outdoor Bible study at a ministers’ conference in the Nuba Mountains, because meeting in an ordinary building is too dangerous, they have set up a temporary place under the trees and between rocks, so that they are invisible from the air. (Open doors)
Ideologically speaking, Christians in Sudan face a hostile future, says Samir of the Evangelical Alliance. “Both sides in the civil conflict are daughters of the Islamist movement in Sudan, and the Islamic ideology of both is to have no tolerance for others. They regard anyone who is different from them as against them. The Christian is considered their enemy as part of their religious ideology, and fighting them as their religious duty.”
He continued: “So anyone who does anything to harm Christians is considered beneficial to the law or to Allah.” Samir further said: “The country is returning to the Dark Ages.”
Repeated and ongoing attempts to broker a ceasefire between the government’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the opposing militia, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), have failed. Both sides admit that they are still fighting and, it is clear, that they are killing civilians with sustained energy, especially in the central Sudanese region of Kordofan, where many Christians live.
The Evangelical Church in Omdurman, Sudan, after being bombed, even though it was not in a combat zone or used by combatant forces. (Open doors)
The spokesperson continued: “Civilian suffering has reached catastrophic levels, with millions of people 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 UN says fighting is increasing in Kordofan. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told reporters in Port Sudan on January 18: “I am deeply concerned that the atrocities committed during and after the El Fasher takeover are at high risk of recurrence in the Kordofan region, where the conflict has rapidly escalated since late October.”
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“The Kordofan states are extremely unstable,” he continued, “with brutal military fighting, heavy shelling, drone bombings and air strikes causing widespread destruction and collapse of essential services.”
Wahba said that “while the United States remains kinetically active in adjacent theaters, it is unlikely to enter directly into Sudan’s civil war.”
Members of the Sudanese Army’s Special Mission Forces battalion in the northern state hold a parade in the town of Karima on May 19, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
“President Trump,” Wahba added, “has expressed a clear desire to see the conflict resolved — a goal echoed by both Egypt and Saudi Arabia — but translating that consensus into results on the ground has proven far more difficult than the rhetoric suggests.”
“For now,” Wahba continued, “US policy is to bring together regional stakeholders and push for coordination, while prioritizing humanitarian corridors, relief efforts, and coordination with partners willing to host talks.” Washington acts as a facilitator, not an enforcer.”
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“This stance reflects both restraint and caution. Sudan offers few reliable leverage points, no unified opposition partner, and (there is) 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, shaped less by strategy than by crisis management,” she said.
Despite everything, Samir from the Sudan Evangelical Alliance has hope: “The Holy Spirit is moving and God’s hand is working in our country. I can tell you that through this evil, this darkness, the light of the love of our God is shining in many hearts. The devil steals people to death every day. We pray that we Christians can live one more day, one more day to proclaim the message of Jesus.”
