Sudanese party condemns church demolition in Khartoum

July 12, 2025 (KHARTOUM) – A Sudanese political group on Saturday condemned the demolition of a church in the capital, Khartoum, calling it a violation of religious freedom that fuels conflict.

The Pentecostal church in the Al-Haj Yousif area of Khartoum North was torn down by bulldozers on July 8, in the evening, according to press reports. Church officials reportedly received no prior legal notice.

Nizar Yousif, a spokesman for the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – Democratic Revolutionary Current, said in a statement that the group “condemns the removal of the Pentecostal church as a flagrant violation of religious freedoms.”

He described the act as “an embodiment of the structural discrimination against those who are religiously and ethnically different.”

Sudan has faced severe internal conflict and division since fighting broke out on April 15, 2023, with combatants often mobilized along tribal lines, raising fears for the country’s future stability.

“Respecting religious and ethnic diversity is a fundamental condition for building a new, democratic Sudan based on citizenship without discrimination,” Yousif’s statement said.

The spokesman warned of a return to the policies of former President Omer al-Bashir’s government, alleging that the Islamic Movement and the National Congress Party were behind a new wave of religious and ethnic persecution.

The Bashir government, which came to power in a 1989 military coup, framed the long-running civil war with the country’s south, which later seceded, as a religious conflict.

Yousif called on the international community to “pay attention to the actions of the National Congress Party and the Islamic Movement,” and urged that the latter be designated a “terrorist organization.”