By BosNewsLife Africa Service
KHARTOUM, SUDAN (BosNewsLife)– A Christian aid group says preparations are underway to “rescue” a further 3,400 Christians from Sudan where the “increasingly aggressive Islamic government” is “seeking to eradicate Christianity.”
“We are once again extending our Exodus mission,” confirmed Barnabas Fund in a statement monitored by BosNewsLife Thursday, August 22.
Since the launch of the “major operation” a year ago, Barnabas Fund already “airlifted or bussed nearly 5,000 vulnerable Christians to South Sudan,” the group said.
“They are beginning a new life free from the oppression and hostility they have endured for years in the overwhelmingly Muslim North,” Banabas Fund explained. Many among those already rescued are “the most needy women, around two-thirds of whom are widows, and children.” the group claimed.
“After many years of suffering and prayers, God opened the way for us,” said a returning Christian mother, identified only as ‘Suzy’, in published remarks.
MOBILIZING MASS TRANSPORTATION
Barnabas Fund said its partners in Sudan, known locally as Africa Inland Church – Sudan, are now “mobilizing for the mass transportation” of the other 3,400 Christians, who have been living as refugees in what it called “primitive tented camps on the outskirts of Khartoum”, the capital, for years.
Yet, “Their plight is worsening as the rainy season creates bog-like conditions; the mud is reportedly waist-high in places. But the biggest danger to these believers is the increasingly aggressive Islamist government, which is seeking to eradicate the Christian presence in Sudan and strengthen sharia law,” the group stressed.
After the secession of South Sudan in 2011, people of Southern origin were stripped of their citizenship of Sudan reportedly gave them a deadline to leave.
Hundreds of thousands of Southerners, who are mostly Christians, had fled to the North during the 22-year-long civil war that ended in 2005, according to Christian aid workers.
SOUTH RAVAGED
“The South was ravaged as the North fought to impose sharia law in the territory,” Barnabas Fund said in a commentary. Though many
Southerners returned to their homeland, thousands of poor and vulnerable Christians — who lack the resources to Transport themselves and their families — remain trapped, according to rights activists.
Barnabas said it initially airlifted Christians to safety. When major road connections between Sudan and South Sudan re-opened in October last year, they were able to transport people by bus at a lower cost, “meaning that we could help more people than originally planned.”
The group said it is still seeking some 118,000 dollars to fully finance the latest transport of Christians. (With reporting by BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos).
(BosNewsLife, the first truly independent news agency covering persecuted Christians, is ‘Breaking the News for Compassionate Professionals’ since 2004).
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