U.S. condemns bloody attack against Sudanese Christians in Khartoum

April 5, 2017 (KHARTOUM) – The U.S. Embassy in Khartoum has condemned a violent attack against Sudanese Christians in Omdurman following a peaceful protest they organised last Monday against the sale of the Evangelical School by a contested committee.

A church elder, Younan Abdallah, was killed by the attackers who wanted to evacuate the Evangelical School in Omdurman from the protesters. The church and school were founded by American Presbyterian missionaries in 1924.

“U.S. Embassy is deeply saddened by the organised, violent attack on April 3 against church members and school teachers at the Omdurman Evangelical School adjoining Omdurman Presbyterian Church,” reads a statement issued by the U.S Embassy in Khartoum on Wednesday.

“We call on security and law enforcement to ensure that all perpetrators involved in this heinous act are brought to justice,” further said the embassy.

The buildings of the historical school have been sold to businessmen allegedly aligned with the government by a contested committee the protesters claimed it has been imposed by the government.

According to the Middle East Concern (MEC), a group defending religious freedoms of Christians across the world, the attack occurred when a group of about 20 persons and members of the committees that sold the building “entered the premises of the school with knives and other weapons and began to beat the women” who protested the sale.

MEC in its statement accused the Sudanese police of colluding with the attackers saying they came before the attack on the protesting women and arrested all the men participating in the protest.

It further said that Younan Abdullah and other men rushed from the nearby Evangelical Church to protect the women. So, the armed men attacked them and stabbed the victim who later died of his injuries. Another man was stabbed but he was treated at a hospital.

(ST)