Introduction:

What had happened this week for the church in Sudan has shaken us as church community in the Sudan. Some of the information in the media were not correct as it was reported to be Anglican church or Catholic Church in Khartoum, but the correct information is a very old Bible School in Gerief West in Khartoum belonging to Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church. Within the Bible School Compound, there is a Church and a number of housing for students.

This was not the first incident, St. John Parish Church in Haj-Yousif, Episcopal Church of the Sudan received a warning letter giving 72 hours for church leadership to demolish the church or else legal and any other means will be used to demolish this building as it is in a illegal plot of land and also South Sudanese have gone to South Sudan. The leaders of the Church wrote the Ministry concern to intervene. The church is still standing after more than 72 hours, but nobody knows how long will it stand?!

Brief history on recent incident of Presbyterian Evangelical Church:

On Friday the 20th April: Imams were heard from two nearby Mosques saying they are informing all the people in the area to mobilize themselves to take over the Church because that the land belong to them. The relevant authorities were informed. The Police were brought in to guard the place.

On Saturday 21^st:  Around 2pm the group of people as many as over 500 came into the Bible School and began to destroy the buildings, burning down books including Bibles and uprooting trees! The most amazing thing was that the policemen were around but did nothing to prevent this happening!

Photo courtesy of Sudan Change Now

On Sunday 22:  Christians gathered in the compound to pray and to encourage one another over the incident. All the Christian denominations attended the prayer [as well as] Muslims, political parties, women groups, and the neighbors. All the speakers condemned the incident that this is not Sudanese behavior nor is it Islamic behavior. Some of the Muslims apologized on behalf of the other Muslims because this evil act was done in the name of Islam which does not represent the spirit of true Islam.

Representative of the government said that this behavior is not acceptable because no civilized person could do such barbaric act. He promised that the ministry will investigate the matter.

Meanwhile, the members of the Church have had a meeting with the Commissioner of the area in his office who had the time had not yet visited the vandalized Church and the School, promised that he was going to form an investigation Committee to deal with the matter, that anyone who is found to have been involved, will be brought justice, that he was going to come to see the place with his own yeas,  that all the cost of the church and the school will be paid for by the government and that the police will be responsible in guarding the area until the matter is resolved fully.

Monday 23^rd:  Heads of Churches in Sudan… to strategize how they would handle this tragic situation of the church in the Sudan. They agreed that they must come out with a clear statement on the issue and hold a press conference to inform the public and the world of what the church in Sudan is facing. In this meeting Dr. Faroug al Bushra, Secretary General of Sudan Inter Religious Council joined the meeting and he offered sympathy to the Church and SCC over what had happened and again, he said that this act does not reflect the spirit of true Islam.

While the meeting was going on we received a phone call from SCC Nyala in Darfur that the security has taken over the premises of SCC and Sudan Aid in Nyala. That they came in the morning as usual but found that the place was occupied by others and were told to hand over the keys of all the vehicles and motor bikes. 5 vehicles and 3 bikes were removed from the compound of SCC office Nyala. Offices of Sudan Aid and SCC Nyala are closed by Security.

Having formed a drafting committee for SCC Statement, we then moved to the Ministry of Religious Guidance and Endowments were meeting was going on over the issue with members of Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church. The meeting was being chaired by the State Minister. The Minister having listened to full story of what had happened.  The Minister expressed his sadness and grieve of what took place for the Church and its property and that such evil things can be done in the name of Islam. He assured that church leaders that his Ministry will do all it can to see that justice is done to the church and that those responsible will be brought to justice.

He formed a committee consisting of members from both the Ministry and the Church to handle the issue.

The church on her part has open legal cases against those who destroyed and burned down the church. It has been estimated SDG 5,000,000 value of property which got destroyed and it be more than this.

Conclusion:

I would like to thank many of you, friends around the world who have been praying for the church in Sudan. We very appreciate these efforts. It seems that there is a plan to stop the work of the Church or threaten Church leaders in Sudan to stop preaching after the independence of Sudan. What I know, the church will remain and will continue to operate though there will continue to be challenges on the way. The history tells us so. It happened in the past, but the church continued to this day.

However, sometime we feel have been forgotten even by our close friends. Because it seems no one cares about us here in Sudan after independence of South Sudan. Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile areas people are in a terrible situation and it seems no one cares. We are called insects!

I believe that the good Lord will protect the church in Sudan and whatever happens, there will be way out.

Read the full article at http://www.christianpost.com/news/sudan-threatens-to-arrest-church-leaders-67479/

The result is yet another NCP-manufactured humanitarian crisis in the Blue Nile region, with some fifty thousand residents forced to flee the fighting to neighboring Sennar State, and an additional 16,000 people fleeing to Ethiopia.

The real motive behind Bashir’s unilateral truce in Southern Kordofan State has become all too clear by last Thursday’s offensive. Having shifted a substantial amount of troops and military hardware into Blue Nile State, the SAF have sacked the elected SPLM Governor and launched a new genocidal war against the indigenous Africans.

In this way, the NCP has completely abandoned the CPA and destroyed any hope for peaceful departure from totalitarianism to self-determination. One by one, through military force, Bashir has carried out the systematic unravelling of CPA promises first in Abyei, then in the Nuba mountain region and now in Blue Nile State.

These soldiers are fighting, because they refuse to be "Arabized" and "Islamized."

Sudan expert Eric Reeves observed, “The only beneficiaries of this ruthlessly destructive military action against Blue Nile State are the most extreme members of the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party cabal, and senior members of the security and military apparatus; the calculation on which their decision has been made could not be more brutal.”

Please pray for the innocent people of Blue Nile State who are victims of these war crimes and atrocities. Please also pray that God will continue to open doors for His people to intercede through advocacy, relief and other means of encouragement.

Persecution Project Foundation President, Brad Phillips, was a key witness in providing testimony of the atrocities being committed by the government of North Sudan.

A destroyed village in the Nuba Mountains is evidence of the recent attacks by al-Bashir's forces against the Nuba people.

C-SPAN broadcast the hearing in its entirety.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/27580601[/vimeo]

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/27580980[/vimeo]

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/27585188[/vimeo]

The following is a very important article written on June 24, 2011 by Elizabeth Kendal of Religious Liberty Monitoring (http://elizabethkendal.blogspot.com/) regarding the current war in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan in Southern Kordofan State. We have received permission to reprint it in full. PPF’s Brad Phillips and Matt Chancey just returned from a 12-day journey into the Nuba Mountains to assess the current needs of the people and to verify and document many of the horrific accounts of war crimes and ethnic cleansing coming out of this area. The pictures in this article were taken during this amazing and sometimes harrowing journey.

Headed for the Warzone.

Sudan: Nuba Genocide Resumes

The Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan are populated by some 50 African tribes collectively known as Nuba. A marginalised and long-suffering mostly Christian people, the Nuba only narrowly survived a genocidal assault in the early 1990s. Today, as Southern secession looms, it appears that the genocidal regime of indicted war criminal Omar al-Bashir may be set on completing the genocide it did not quite manage to effect during the civil war.

“Once again,” laments the Rt. Rev. Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail of the Episcopal Diocese of Kadugli, “we are facing the nightmare of genocide of our people, a final attempt to erase our culture and society from the face of the earth.”

When Vision Dies

Despite his best efforts when negotiating the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), South Sudan’s visionary leader, Dr. John Garang, had not been able to get the Government of Sudan (GoS) to agree to a referendum on self-determination for the Nuba. Garang, however, assured the Nuba that if the CPA was implemented then the racist, Islamist regime would be finished and a “New Sudan” would emerge. And so the Nuba signed the CPA despite their immense dissatisfaction at the lack of a referendum on Nuba self-determination.

When Dr. John Garang signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on 9 January 2005 on behalf of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), he never intended that Southern secession should be the outcome. In fact Dr. Garang regarded the disintegration of Sudan as “something at all costs we must avoid.”

See: TEXT: Garang’s speech at the signing ceremony of S. Sudan peace deal http://www.sudantribune.com/TEXT-Garang-s-speech-at-the,7476 Sudan Tribune, Monday 10 January 2005

The CPA’s provision of a referendum on Southern self-determination was included primarily as a confidence measure to help the traumatised, jihad-ravaged Southerners support the CPA. Secession was never part of Dr. Garang’s vision, for Garang was acutely aware that all Sudan’s non-Arabs and non-Muslims — not just those residing in the South — needed an end to the crippling racial and religious discrimination and violent persecution they were suffering: they all needed a New Sudan. Doubtless after oil was discovered in the south, Garang would also have realised that the North would never let the South just walk away with 80 percent of the state’s oil reserves.

Troops headed to the front lines.

Dr. Garang saw Sudan as home to some 500 different ethnic groups speaking more than 130 different languages; an ancient land with a 5,000 year history of diversity and flux. He believed that at the root of all Sudan’s troubles were the regime’s efforts to create a monolithic Arab-Islamist State. According to Garang, Sudan’s problems could only be solved by Sudanese accepting their history, embracing their diversity, and committing themselves to the establishment of an all-inclusive New Sudan; a state “in which all Sudanese are equally stakeholders irrespective of their religion, irrespective of their race, tribe or gender”. “Sudan,” he said, “belongs equally to all the peoples that now inhabit the country and its history, its diversity and richness [are] the common heritage of all Sudanese.”

These soldiers are fighting, because they refuse to be "Arabized" or "Islamized."

Garang proposed a devolution of power to the various regions, and free and fair democratic elections through which a truly representative National Assembly could be formed. He believed that if these could not be achieved, then unity would become attractive and a nightmarish war of disintegration could be averted to the benefit of all. The CPA provided a window of six years — from 9 Jan 2005 (CPA) to 9 Jan 2011 (referendum on Southern self-determination). Of course Garang could not do this alone: such a feat would require oppositional unity and Khartoum’s cooperation to ensure full CPA implementation.

But tragically Dr. John Garang (born on 23 June 1945) died in a helicopter crash on 30 July 2005. He had led the SPLM/A for 22 years. From that point onwards the National Congress Party (NCP, formerly the National Islamic Front (NIF)) regime of President Omar al-Bashir did everything in its power to frustrate the implementation of the CPA.

See: Southern Sudan: On the path to war http://elizabethkendal.blogspot.com/2007/10/southern-sudan-on-path-to-war.html Elizabeth Kendal for WEA RLC. 3 Oct 2007

See also: Sudan’s elections: already totally compromised. http://elizabethkendal.blogspot.com/2010/04/sudans-elections-already-totally.html Elizabeth Kendal, Religious Liberty Monitoring, 8 April 2010

During these years, it was profoundly unfortunate that the “international community” chose to do little more than equivocate and appease the NCP/NIF regime. Ultimately however, it was supremely unfortunate that the SPLM — under the leadership of Salva Kiir and long-time pro-secessionist Riek Machar — succumbed to the “divide and conquer” strategy of the duplicitous al-Bashir. On the eve of the April 2010 elections, Kiir and Machar struck a deal with al-Bashir: the SPLM would pull their presidential candidate and guarantee al-Bashir the presidency in exchange for guarantees from al-Bashir — a brutal dictator who is driven by racial and religious hatred, who lies compulsively and is an indicted war criminal — that the referendum on Southern self-determination would proceed peacefully. This was a profound strategic blunder, a moral travesty and a failure of faith: a “covenant with death” indeed!

See: SPLM – NCP alliance: a “covenant with death”. http://elizabethkendal.blogspot.com/2010/05/splm-ncp-alliance-covenant-with-death.html Elizabeth Kendal, Religious Liberty Monitoring, 14 May 2010

The PPF team poses on a "liberated" enemy tank.

Now with the South due to secede on 9 July 2011, the regime in Khartoum is doing exactly what dedicated Sudan-watchers feared it would do. It has invaded, ethnically cleansed, occupied and annexed the contested, traditionally Dinka Ngok-populated border region of Abyei. It has recommenced its genocidal war against the African, predominantly Christian tribes of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan (North Sudan), and it is bombing SPLA positions in the oil fields of Unity State (South Sudan), doubtless ahead of an invasion.

This man lost a leg but still manages to smile as our team greets several amputees at the only functioning hospital in the Nuba Mountains.

We met dozens of amputees during our visit to the hospital.

Abyei Seized

The hotly contested, fertile and oil-rich province of Abyei, straddles the north-south divide. Traditionally, northern pro-Khartoum Misseriya Arabs drive their cattle through the southern Dinka Ngok-populated regions of Abyei annually. The CPA mandated that Abyei should get its own referendum to determine whether it would be part of the south or the north after secession.

In July 2009, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that Abyei be delineated in such a fashion as to reduce its size (most notably in the east). The ruling put the highly productive Heglig and Bamboo oil fields in the North, under GoS (Khartoum) control. Naturally the GoS welcomed the fact “that the oilfields are now excluded from the Abyei area.” While the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) was disappointed, it accepted the ruling as “final and binding.” The ruling left the new, redefined Abyei even more predominantly populated by Dinka Ngok. Despite all this, the GoS continued to frustrate the formation of a referendum commission, while insisting that northern Misseriya Arab nomads be granted voting rights in Abyei, despite the fact that they are not residents. Ultimately the referendum did not take place.

This little girl lost her entire family in one of the bombings. She was also paralyzed by shrapnel.

Speaking on Wednesday 27 April 2011, to a rally of mostly Misseriya Arabs in neighboring Southern Kordofan (North Sudan), President Omar al-Bashir rendered a referendum void declaring: “Abyei is located in North Sudan and will remain in North Sudan.”

On Thursday 19 May, Khartoum accused the Southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) of attacking a convoy of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in Dokura north of Abyei town. While the SPLA denied responsibility, the government responded with force.

We witnessed total destruction of villages by the Sudan Armed Forces.

After several hours of bombing and shelling, SPLA troops retreated and Abyei’s remnant 20,000 southern Dinka Ngok residents fled south as SAF tanks and thousands of troops moved in — their numbers having been built up weeks in advance. The MSF hospital in Agok, 40 km (24 miles) south of Abyei, had received 42 wounded by early Saturday morning. By Sunday it was being reported that Khartoum had seized and annexed Abyei.

This poor woman was pulled out of her burning home after bombs set fire to several buildings in her village.

Southern Sudanese leaders have accused the north of “an act of war”, something Khartoum denies, saying it was merely removing illegal elements so as to improve security and ensure peace and stability. Abyei, now under the control of Khartoum, has since been thoroughly looted and torched.

Meanwhile, though Abyei has clearly and obviously been violently ethnically cleansed, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said it was too early to call it ethnic cleansing. According to Ban Ki-Moon, ethnic cleansing can only be said to have occurred if the Dinka Ngok do not return.

See: Sudan’s invasion of Abyei: Is it ethnic cleansing or isn’t it? http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/06/06/sudans_invasion_of_abyei_is_it_ethnic_cleansing_or_isnt_it By Colum Lynch for Foreign Policy. 6 June 2011

See also: Eric Reeves. An Abyei Timeline: The Long Road to Khartoum’s Military Invasion http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article328.html

Nuba Genocide — Khartoum’s final solution?

North Sudan’s South Kordofan state is defined by the Nuba Mountains. While the plains of South Kordofan are populated by pro-Khartoum Arab Misseriya Baggara nomads, the Nuba Mountains are populated by some 50 non-Arab, predominantly non-Muslim African tribes collectively known as Nuba. Long isolated, the Nuba are famous for their unique culture.

In 1968, Khartoum started acquiring large tracts of land for mechanised farming. As the Baggara nomads gradually lost more and more of their traditional pastures, they started grazing their cattle on Nuba land, destroying crops and occupying wells in the process. Tensions soared, exacerbated through the 1970s by drought. By 1983, the Baggara were raiding the Nuba at will with impunity.

PPF accompanied Aljazeera English reporters to meet Nuba commander Abdelaziz Adam Al Hilu.

Meanwhile, Dr. John Garang had united South Sudan’s various rebel forces to form the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). In June ’83 the SPLM published its Manifesto calling for a united, secular, democratic Sudan with equality and rights for all Sudan’s diverse peoples. Khartoum responded by imposing Sharia Law. The South would not submit. The civil war was on.

In 1984, senior Nuba leaders who likewise wanted an end to marginalisation and Islamisation, joined the SPLM/A.

Aljazeera English's late night interview with Commander Abdelaziz at a secret location.

In 1985, a local SPLA taskforce chased a band of Misseriya Baggara raiders to the outskirts of the Nuba Mts, killing 60. Khartoum responded by training and arming Baggara militias, known as Murahaliin, for use in a proxy jihad against the Nuba. When in 1986 an SPLA taskforce came seeking recruits, young Nuba men flocked to enlist. At that point the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) invaded the Nuba Mountains, purging Nuba villages of anyone they suspected of SPLA sympathies.

Brad has been a long-time friend of Nuba resistance leader, Abdelaziz Adam Al Hilu.

In 1989, Lt-Gen. Omar Hassan al-Bashir seized power in an Islamist-backed military coup. Al-Bashir brought the Baggara Murahaliin under government control, rebranded them as the Popular Defence Forces (PDF) and commissioned them to enact genocide in the Nuba Mountains.

The SAF and PDF eliminated the Nuba elite, razed Nuba villages, burned Nuba crops, and shut schools and medical clinics. The areas that survived under SPLA control were then blockaded — closed to all trade and humanitarian aid. Amidst this, the GoS established “Peace Camps” (concentration camps) where submission to the regime and conversion to Islam would win a family GoS food-aid. Hundreds of thousands of Nuba perished in the Government of Sudan (GoS)-engineered famine of 1990-93 rather than submit. If it had not been for corruption — i.e. Arab smugglers — Nuba civilisation would have been annihilated.

See: Facing Genocide: The Nuba of Sudan http://www.justiceafrica.org/publishing/online-books/facing-genocide-the-nuba-of-sudan/ African Rights, 1995

Today genocide has returned to the Nuba Mountains. Violence exploded in South Kordofan on 5 June 2011, as SAF and SPLA troops clashed in the capital, Kadugli. Subsequently, SAF and Baggara Arab militias have been conducting door-to-door sweeping operations in the cities and towns, killing everyone they suspect of SPLA sympathies. In a report entitled, “Genocide in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan” (22 June 2011), long-time Sudan analyst Eric Reeves reports: “Many of these people are hauled away in cattle trucks or summarily executed; dead bodies reportedly litter the streets of Kadugli.”

Commander Abdelaziz to President Obama, "This is another Rwanda Genocide."

While South Kordofan is the only state in the North with oil, this conflict is not primarily about oil; it is about extreme racial hatred and Arab supremacism. “The real issue,” explains Reeves, “is not political identity but Nuba ethnicity.” Reeves quotes aid workers and Nuba who report that the Arab militias have orders to “clear” the region of “blacks“.

Reeves writes: “Yet another Nuba resident of Kadugli (‘Yusef’) told Agence France-Presse that he had been informed by a member of the notorious Popular Defense Forces (PDF) that they had been provided with plenty of weapons and ammunition, and a standing order: ‘He said that they had clear instructions: just sweep away the rubbish. If you see a Nuba, just clean it up’. He told me he saw two trucks of people with their hands tied and blindfolded, driving out to where diggers were making holes for graves on the edge of town.”

Commander Abdelaziz joins with the Church in singing hymns at an impromptu service hidden within the mountains.

According to the Rt. Rev. Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail of the Episcopal Diocese of Kadugli, “churches and pastors were directly targeted.”

Christians have told Compass Direct News that they have witnessed clergy being shot and killed by the sword before their eyes, to shouts of Allahu Akbar. Rev Lual was dragged out of his church and tortured for two days. In Kadugli, the Catholic, Episcopal and Church of Christ churches have been looted and torched.

Three brave Nuba pastors who face arrest, torture and death if the ruling regime in Khartoum wins this war. (Faces blurred for security.)

The Bishop believes that President al-Bashir is declaring to the world that Sharia will be the law of the land for the north, while demonstrating that he will never recognise the legitimate presence of the Christian minority. “Please pray and fast with us as you are able for a solution to this crisis,” he pleads.

The singing of the Church echoed for miles through the mountains. It was one of the most powerful services we had ever attended.

Further to this, Khartoum is once again blockading all humanitarian assistance to the Nuba people. The SAF has bombed and totally destroyed the Kauda airstrip which was critical for humanitarian transport. Consequently, the UN can no longer deliver humanitarian aid. As Reeves notes, ”The airstrip has no military value, as the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) forces have no aircraft. The concerted bombing, with high-explosives producing enormous craters, is simply to deny the Nuba food, medicine and shelter.”

Reeves reports: “The same assault on humanitarian efforts is underway in Kadugli and other towns under Khartoum’s military control. The UN World Health Organization warehouse and offices in Kadugli have been completely looted, as have those of other UN humanitarian agencies. The Kadugli airport has been commandeered by Khartoum’s military forces, and all humanitarian flights into South Kordofan have been halted. The World Food Program has announced that it has no way to feed some 400,000 beneficiaries in South Kordofan. As in Darfur, Khartoum intends to wage a genocide of attrition — defeating the Nuba by starving them.”

Now you know. What will you do?

As all long-time Sudan watchers know, Khartoum has considerable experience in engineering famine and using starvation as a weapon of mass destruction.

On Sunday 12 June, the governor of North Kordofan declared jihad on the mostly Christian Nuba. Meanwhile, the governor of South Kordofan, Ahmed Haroun — recently installed by Khartoum by means of a fraudulent poll — is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur.

See: Fear Pervades Nuba Mountains That Sudan Government Intent on Genocide http://asbarez.com/96507/fear-pervades-nuba-mountains-that-sudan-government-intent-on-genocide/ By Samuel Totten, a genocide scholar based at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. 13 June 2011

See also: Sudan’s Nuba people ‘targeted by army’ (youtube) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcayF_sZOf8 Video footage by Aljazeera

Unity State Bombed

Further to this, tens of thousands of Southerners have been forced to flee the aerial bombardment of oil regions in South Sudan’s Unity State. Clearly the regime is aiming to seize as much of the South’s oil-rich territory as possible before secession takes place on 9 July.

See: Sudan bombs Unity state ‘to control oilfields’ http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iJr2DUyucgja08GBBoMDbEEVkvrg?docId=CNG.f0cf4e201117b4e64ed6d628597c40b1.341 By Simon Martelli (AFP), 10 June 2011

See also: Over 2,000 displaced by North Sudan’s bombing of Unity State – officials http://www.sudantribune.com/Over-2-000-displaced-by-north-s,39250 By Bonifacio Taban Kuich, Sudan Tribune, 17 June 2011

See also: Eric Reeves http://www.sudanreeves.org/

The story of South Sudan has not yet been written, but it is already one of the more gripping histories in our modern times.

On January 1, 1956, the nation of Sudan officially became independent of British rule, and the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum immediately began a campaign of persecution in south Sudan, including the expulsion of most foreign missionaries.

South Sudan has always been treated as the ugly stepchild of the North. Ethnically, the people were not Arabs. Religiously, most were not Muslims. But south Sudan had many things of interest to the north. It was rich in natural resources. It controlled one of the main lifelines of Sudan and Egypt — the White Nile. Beneath the surface, vast oil reserves sat waiting to be exploited. South Sudan also contained an abundance of another kind of resource highly prized for centuries in the North: human slaves.

The Arabs established garrisons in the major towns and cities of the south: Malakal, Rumbek, Yei, Juba and Wau. Although the North kept a tight grip on these urban centers, there was one place they had never been able to control: the bush.

Resistance to "Islamization" sprouted in rural areas of South Sudan.

It was in the bush that Southerners chose to base their resistance, and from 1956 to 2005, with only a few years of peace sprinkled here and there, two wars of resistance were fought by the people of south Sudan. Marginalized and discriminated against by their countrymen in the north, most southerners had no desire to adopt the faith of their masters. And most Muslims from the south had no desire to be ruled by their spiritual cousins in Khartoum, who had treated their black brothers as second-class citizens at best.

The war was appalling, leaving an estimated 2 million southerners dead — mostly professing Christians. Millions more were internally displaced.

The south’s rejection of Islam was grounds for a holy Jihad against the “infidel” southerners. In 1983, a twin policy of “Arabization” and “Islamization” was pushed by the Central Government. Sharia law was to be forced upon the south.

In 1989, the United Nations began its “Operation Lifeline Sudan” to help stem the tide of mass famine and starvation among the southern Sudanese. But since the UN operates under the auspices of “official governments,” food shipments could only be delivered to areas approved by the National Islamic Front (NIF) government in Khartoum. This allowed the central government to use food as a weapon in its war of subjugation. For instance, southerners were told, “You can get access to this food, but first you must enroll your sons in our Koranic schools so they can be taught to be good Muslims.”

Food was used as a weapon against the southern Sudanese.

But if the government in Khartoum thought it could manipulate the UN into unknowingly assisting them in Jihad, it didn’t count on help for the south coming from another direction: Christians in the West.

In America, Christians from all walks of life heard about the plight of their brethren in south Sudan. A new crusade began, but not with swords and other implements of war. It was a crusade of love.

Organizations were founded, fundraisers were held. A massive outpouring of charity commenced. Food, medicine, mosquito nets, shelter items, and other life-saving supplies were flown in by mission organizations or private bush pilots from every corner of the globe willing to hazard the red “No Go” areas of south Sudan.

PPF was one of the many organizations founded during the bloodiest time of the fighting. Founder Brad Phillips organized planeload after planeload of relief supplies flying into the “No Go Zones” of southern Sudan. At one point during the war, Phillips organized so many flights that PPF became one of the biggest customers for one of the largest charter companies operating in southern Sudan — second only to the south Sudanese rebel army itself.

PPF flew in planes full of relief supplies during the height of the war.

In 2005, after years of negotiations and pressure from western governments, North and South signed a peace treaty officially ending the war and placed the south on the road to independence. In January, 2011, Southern Sudan voted overwhelmingly to secede and become an independent nation.

But today, it is apparent that the north is not willing to lose control of 75% of the oil revenues coming from the territory of the south. Using the disputed border region of Abyei as an excuse for massive troop build-ups and air attacks, the north has launched a military and economic campaign to destabilize and ruin the new southern nation.

Militarily, the north has launched airstrikes on the south and sent troops into the oil-rich Abyei region, displacing more than 100,000 people at last count, most of whom are Ngok Dinka. Rebellious leaders of small, disgruntled units of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in the south have mutinied and begun terrorizing rival tribes with the support and funding of Khartoum.

Economically, the north has cut back fuel shipments to the south. Although most of the oil comes from the south, it is refined in the north. Diesel has shot up to over $3 per liter — more than $10 per gallon — driving up prices for food and everything else and creating shortages everywhere.

Whether the southern people can hold their fragile state together under all this pressure remains to be seen, but PPF is determined to continue doing all it can to help the persecuted church in South Sudan.

In spite of the bad news, the reality is that South Sudan has been liberated from an oppressive Islamic regime and has dealt a major blow to the forces of Jihad.

There is much celebrating going on in South Sudan. All southerners know that their freedom was a hard-fought victory. They also know that their long journey has only now brought them to the starting line.

Their long, hard-fought journey towards freedom and independence has brought them only to the beginning.

To all the supporters and ministry partners of PPF, we express our immense gratitude for being used of God to accomplish what few people even ten years ago would have imagined. After more than a dozen years of work bringing support, aid, and encouragement to the persecuted in South Sudan, we are now at the beginning. As we move forward, hand-in-hand with our brethren in Africa’s newest country, we invite you to continue walking and working with us.

When did you have your first memory? I vaguely remember my nursery at home when I was probably two or three years old. Some people can remember even earlier. But a young man I recently met in South Sudan has no memory of his childhood.

Santino

I met Santino on a recent trip to the refugee community of Jaac on the Darfur border. Santino was a new refugee, having just arrived from the North. I soon found out that Santino was also a slave who had recently escaped.

Although slavery is technically illegal in Sudan, it is still practiced by many people. The tragedy of Santino’s slavery is that he does not recall when he was first enslaved. When he told me this, I assumed it was because he was taken as a young child. But I was wrong. Santino told me his relatives claim he was enslaved at the age of 13. This puzzled me, because I had not heard of anyone who had no memories of their childhood.

Though technically illegal, slavery is still practiced in Sudan.

Then I remembered reading an article about how people who have suffered terrible physical abuse sometimes block out certain things from their past. It was then that Santino’s story began to make sense. The reality of slavery in Sudan is that masters often viciously abuse their slaves in the most despicable ways.

Many boys are kidnapped and enslaved at a very young age.

These experiences would make one want to forget. And I am afraid this is likely the sad reality of Santino’s past. In the days leading up to the referendum in South Sudan, Santino, now in his early 20s, was encouraged to run away by some Dinka friends living in Darfur. They told him he was a Dinka, not an Arab, and should run to his native home in the South. Santino took his friends’ advice and returned home. It was then that his relatives helped him piece together his life story.

I am sharing Santino’s story so PPF supporters can pray for this young man specifically. Not only did he arrive from Darfur with few possessions, he has no past. But thanks to your partnership with PPF, Santino can have a future. Please take a moment and pray for this young man — and for all the young men and women served by the ministry of Persecution Project Foundation.

On July 9, 2011, the six-year interim period of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement will come to an end. That same day, South Sudan will mark its independence and inauguration as the world’s newest nation.

The people of South Sudan have reason to celebrate their recent independence!

This comes following fifty years of war, persecution, genocide, and slavery by Arab-Islamist elites in Khartoum who have sought to dominate the African south ever since independence from Egypt and Great Britain on January 1, 1956.

The first war, which broke out in 1955 between the North and South just prior to independence, lasted until a peace was brokered in 1972. The 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement fell apart in 1983 when President Nimiery reneged on promises of autonomy for the South, and the country plunged back into war.

More than two million Southern Sudanese (mostly Christians) died in the most recent war – Anyanya II – which ended in January, 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Another five million people were uprooted from their homes and made internal refugees.

The strategy of the National Islamic Front – now National Congress Party – in the capitol of Khartoum, has always been to marginalize and divide the people of the South in order to rape, plunder, and spoil the land of its people and resources.

Omar al-Bashir is President of Sudan and the head of the National Congress Party.

Rather than enriching its citizens, Sudan’s oil, gold, gum arabic, timber, water, and wildlife have been squandered by the “Lords of War” for more than half a century.

During the 23-year war, five million refugees were left homeless in their own country.

After a brief period of peace during the 1970s, war began again in 1983 and was worse than before. But through the persecution, Christianity spread even more. Ironically, many Southern Sudanese came to Christ because they wanted to know the Person in whose Name they were persecuted.

Though ill-equipped, the South Sudanese army successfully resisted the advances of the North.

Tertullian’s famous quote “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church” is certainly true in Southern Sudan. The church in Sudan has been described as one of the fastest-growing churches in Africa.

A burned Bible found on the ground during the war is evidence of the relentless attack against Christianity in Sudan.

Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement was remarkable in many ways, not the least of which was the dissolution of the National Islamic Front’s “Islamic State” and the inauguration of Dr. John Garang, the first Sudanese Christian First Vice President. Now with the results of the historic Referendum for Self-Determination, we are witnessing the emergence of a Christian-led democratic nation birthed from within a collapsed Islamic state.

PPF President, Brad Phillips, with the late Dr. John Garang, the first Southerner - and Christian - to be Vice President of Sudan.

The birth of the Republic of South Sudan has been reported by many commentators as the fall of the Islamist “Berlin Wall” of Northern Africa.

In the February 28 edition of Newsweek Magazine, Sudan expert John Prendergast attributed “the breeze of freedom from South Sudan” as “a gale force wind” that was felt in Egypt.

All of these momentous changes throughout the Arab world have been credited by many experts to have been sparked by a backwater area of the world, inhabited by people the Arabs derogatorily refer to as “Abd” (meaning slave).

Yet it is these same people the Arab world considers “foolish” that God has used to “confound the wise.”

Over the years, Persecution Project Foundation has introduced you to some of the Sudanese heroes of the Faith who have suffered great persecution simply because they were Christians.

You may recall the story of Joseph, a young boy in Northern Aweil who was abducted, enslaved, and survived torture and crucifixion.

Joseph, the crucified boy.

Or Leah, a young blind girl who was beaten, raped, and left for dead by a marauding band of Popular Defense Force Troops while she was attending church at her home village of Bandura in the Nuba mountains.

Leah and her daughter.

Or Deng Deng, a small boy of less than 10 years who was abducted, enslaved, and eventually had both hands chopped off by his master.

Deng Deng

These persecuted brothers and sisters have inspired us with their courage and faith.

Burned tukel - Homes of Christians in South Sudan were burned in the campaigns to rid Sudan of the 'infidels'.

It has been a great privilege to stand alongside a very heroic people during part of their journey from slavery to freedom.

When I first visited Southern Sudan, even as everyone prayed for deliverance from the oppressive regime in Khartoum, no one would have believed this day would come so soon. By God’s mercy, as members of the same family, we have been able to witness this historic transformation.

Now, we must continue to work hard and pray that this hard-fought political freedom will be accompanied by true spiritual freedom, because we know that “where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17).

The fact that South Sudan is a free nation is cause for great celebration. Our hope and prayer is that South Sudan indeed becomes the “Berlin Wall” of Radical Islam, and its example continues to spread to other countries.

Your support of the Persecution Project Foundation has enabled us to minister to our persecuted brethren in the most neglected and restricted areas of Sudan.

Whether it has been through raising awareness, providing clean water, or medicine, or food, or Bibles, or pastoral training, your compassion and sacrificial giving to PPF have played a significant role in helping South Sudan emerge as the world’s newest nation – a nation where Christians can worship freely without fear of persecution.

Our desire is to continue to stand with our brothers and sisters in South Sudan as they begin this new chapter in their walk with the Lord. And I would ask you to continue your walk with PPF.

Today may be a day of celebration. But the work has just begun. Thank you for continuing to stand with this ministry and these people.

What I just witnessed never happened. You won’t read about it anywhere in the news. No one is talking about it. Yet I just returned from seeing the biggest humanitarian crisis going on in Africa today… and most of the world is doing nothing about it.

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the tragic airstrikes in the Darfur refugee area called Jaac. Jaac is an administrative district in Southern Sudan on the Darfur border and has been home to tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the violence in the world’s only ongoing genocide.

Jaac is also the scene of one of Persecution Project Foundation’s largest ongoing relief operations. We first visited Jaac in 2005, and we’re still there today. When we first arrived, we found a few hundred refugees sitting under the trees waiting to die. The nearest water supply was a two day walk. The only food was leaves picked from the trees and boiled into a mush. It was horrible.

Current refugees are forced to once again eat leaves.

We took action, and began pouring into Jaac whatever God placed in our hands through the generous contributions of Christians all over America.

We built a base camp and began using it as a makeshift clinic while we built a permanent structure. We brought in shipments of food, blankets, medicine, mosquito nets, clothing, and other crisis relief items.

In December, PPF distributed medicine, food, action packs, blankets and Bibles in Jaac.

We supported the founding of a school to teach children to read. And we gave them Bibles in their own language so they could learn about the Love that sought them out in a wilderness.

And most importantly for their physical needs, PPF began drilling wells to provide a clean source of water to the now swelling population in Jaac.

Wells in Jaac are being stressed by the influx of so many new refugees.

Jaac is an area largely neglected by the UN and the NGO community because of its proximity to danger and its extreme remoteness. The roads are nothing more than glorified cow trails, which washout for half the year, cutting Jaac off from the rest of the country.

Yet, Jaac is the only refuge to an estimated 200,000 people who have fled their native homes to find safety from their enemies. But recently, the drums of war have touched this “Oasis in Hell” as the Sudan Mirror described Jaac in 2009.

A new Jaac refugee sits near his makeshift hut.

The ruling government in Khartoum, the National Congress Party, is angered by Darfur rebel groups who it claims are finding support and sanctuary in border regions in Southern Sudan. Consequently, the Sudan Air Force bombed two villages in the Jaac area three times in November, killing and wounding many and causing widespread panic among the local population.

Tens of thousands fled… and they ran to the only safe zone they knew: the PPF mission station in Jaac.

New refugees in Jaac wait near the PPF mission station.

I recently flew to Jaac to personally see with my own eyes what I had been hearing through numerous pleas for help from my contacts in the community. We landed on a Thursday in early December, and what I saw shocked and disturbed me.

All around the Jaac airstrip, which PPF had constructed soon after our arrival in 2005, were thousands of makeshift grass huts. I estimate 18,000 people were living in just the vicinity of the airstrip. They knew the airstrip had welcomed relief to the community for years. Now, they pitched their tents, as it were, to the only lifeline they had.

A small section of the new "homes" in Jaac.

The scene was heartbreaking. I walked around from hut to hut, interviewing the refugees. While surveying the scene, I saw a little eight-year-old girl named Aluet just arriving in Jaac after a two day walk. She was carrying a little bottle of milk and her twelve-month-old brother, Garang. When I asked about her story, I was told her father died last year and her mother was recently killed in the November 24th airstrike.

Aluet with her twelve-month-old brother, Garang.

But Aluet’s story of suffering was sadly not unique. I was also informed by medical personnel that 200 women had died giving birth in the last three weeks because of severe malnutrition.

Thankfully, the night before I landed, PPF’s relief truck, Mercy, arrived. It brought blankets, medicine, and action packs that the Voice of the Martyrs donated. As soon as the truck was offloaded, I sent it to the closest town where we could buy food, and instructed the driver to purchase as much as I had funds on me to buy. But it was a drop in the bucket compared to teh tremendous need.

PPF's truck 'Mercy' delivers much need relief supplies to Jaac.

Tragically, all we could do was select from among the refugees, 500 families who seemed to us to need the most help, and give them what we had. It may last them two weeks.

I also discovered that the swelling population in Jaac had stretched the wells to the breaking point. Twenty five wells out of the 62 we have in the entire area of Jaac were broken because of the stress of constant use by the new refugees.

I met with the local Administrator, who I have known for years, to discuss what could be done. I could see the worry in his face. He told me his district was being largely ignored by the government because of the fear that too much attention to the area would distract and even endanger the referendum on secession that is scheduled for January 9th, 2011.

Brad meets with local Administrator in Jaac.

The Administrator said the fighting was much heavier than reported by the government or the press, as witnessed by the growing refugee population in Jaac. But no one was doing anything. Most western aid organizations have already sent their people home for the holidays. They will be gone until the referendum is over.

This means that the humanitarian crisis in Jaac is being overlooked and is taking a back seat to the political issues surrounding the referendum. Jaac is basically a news void – a vacuum.

But the people of Jaac don’t know this. Little Aluet and her brother Garang don’t know anything about referendums, or interim peace agreements, or politics. All they know is that their parents are dead, and they are orphans in a wilderness.

In the same manner, we at PPF seek not to be distracted by politics. All we know is that a community we have served for the last six years is now in a state of crisis and extreme need. And we must do something.

The refugees in Jaac are not just statistics. They're people. They're friends.

These victims are not statistics. These are people we have known for years. I have watched their children grow. I have worshipped in their churches and helped baptize new members. I have seen the miracle your compassion has created in a wilderness of death and despair. This is my family. This is your family. We must do something. We cannot abandon them now.

Last week, PPF sent out a press release reporting on the recent bombing of Darfur refugees in Southern Sudan. Although these incidents were far from the worst behavior we have witnessed from the National Congress Party in Khartoum (formerly known as the National Islamic Front), it especially hit home to us because Jaac Payam, where the attacks took place, is an area where PPF has worked for six years.

The airstrikes were the latest in a string of violent actions in the Darfur border area, which began in August. The result has been hundreds killed and thousands displaced from their homes. More than 15,000 people have fled the border and moved further south, straining the PPF-sponsored resources like wells and medical facilities.

PPF's Medical Clinic in Jaac.

There is an immediate need for clean water, food, and medical care to help in this new humanitarian crisis. PPF has 62 wells in the Jaac area, but many are currently broken due to overuse by the swelling population. Each well is designed for 500 people, but several thousand are currently using each well. When one breaks, people move to another well, straining the new well and eventually breaking it, starting a domino effect on other wells.

The good news is that roads are finally drying, making the affected area accessible for relief shipments.

The bad news is, because of security concerns and the upcoming referendum in January, there are no other organizations operating in the Jaac area to help the victims. It’s just us. Jaac is very remote, and PPF has been the only permanent NGO presence in Jaac since its establishment as a refugee settlement in 2004.

The Northern Government hopes to spread mayhem all along the border prior to January. And the Southern Government has chosen not to retaliate, because it believes it would threaten the scheduled referendum. To the Southern government, the referendum in January is all-important. Western governments, including the US, have promised to support the outcome of the vote, which everyone knows will mean Africa’s newest country is inaugurated. When this happens, Southern Sudan will officially be free from Northern oppression.

But what about the Jaac residents, who are being treated as little more than pawns in a massive game of diplomatic chess? They have us, their brothers and sisters in America, who have consistently stood with them from the beginning.

I am writing to you today to let you know that PPF’s response is not limited to a press statement. We are doing something about it.

This great need requires our quick response, and we would like your help to make this happen.

Our reliance during these unexpected challenges has always been on God’s provision through your compassion and generosity. I feel bad when I have to make an outright appeal for support, because I know so many of you have already given sacrificially. I don’t want to take that for granted. Thank you for all you have done.

PPF's truck, "Mercy", loaded with medical supplies for Jaac residents.

I simply lay this need before you and ask for your prayerful consideration. In addition to our budgeted needs, we need to raise another $161,000 by the end of the year to help the victims in Jaac. Any part you play in this will be gratefully appreciated. Our pledge is to do all we can with what God puts into our hands to help our persecuted brethren in Jaac.