NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — After it was converted into a paramilitary base, its pews chopped into firewood by soldiers and its compound turned into a graveyard, All Saints Cathedral in Khartoum, the war-ravaged Sudanese capital, is rising again.
In October, the cathedral, the seat of the Church of Sudan, a member of the Anglican Communion, resumed activities, albeit with only a few people, according to Archbishop Ezekiel Kondo. “At present, it is a small congregation and people are returning. I am very pleased,” Kondo told Religion News Service.
Those congregants are believed to be some of the 1.2 million Sudanese people who have returned to Khartoum and other cities after troops aligned with Sudan’s government pushed out the rebel paramilitary Rapid Support Forces nearly a year ago. Driven by hope and resilience, the returning population is braving devastated infrastructure, lack of basic services and security risks.
Despite the government forces’ victory last March, the political leadership has only recently returned to the capital, which it abandoned in April 2023 amid intensified fighting, relocating to the Red Sea city of Port Sudan. “Today, we return. The government of hope returns to the national capital,” Prime Minister Kamil Idris told reporters in Khartoum in January.
Sudan, red, in northeast Africa. (Map courtesy of Wikimedia/Creative Commons)
The cathedral was among the five out of 33 Anglican churches in the country that were forced to shut down in the early phase of the civil war, and though All Saints was not bombed, it suffered severe damage, with the archbishop and the dean’s residences and offices completely destroyed.
“So far there is no power. The security is not perfect, but there is a police station nearby,” the archbishop said of the cathedral, adding that the crosses that marked Christian graves in the cathedral’s cemetery have all been destroyed.
In an earlier interview, Kondo told RNS that it will cost the church millions of dollars to repair the damage.
Fighting for control of the northeastern part of the country continues. No exact numbers are available, but local agencies and human right organizations estimate that the war and its related causes have killed between 20,000 and 150,000 people.
The International Rescue Committee estimates that an additional 12 million people have been displaced and 33.7 million people — approximately two-thirds of the country’s population — are in need of humanitarian assistance. “Sudan is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. It is also the largest and the fastest displacement crisis,” said the organization.
At least 150 churches have been damaged or attacked in the country. In el-Fasher, the capital of the state of North Sudan, churches belonging to the Church of Sudan, the Africa Inland Church and the Roman Catholic Church came under attack during an 18-month siege that ended with an RSF victory last October.
Sudanese church leaders have been calling on “all parties to the conflict in Sudan to cease hostilities and agree to dialogue,” noting that the war has claimed countless innocent lives and forced large numbers of Sudanese men, women and children to flee their homes.
“We see and hear stories of women, children and the elderly and large numbers of communities displaced from their homes, their lives reduced to poverty and misery,” said Bishop Yunan Tombe Trille Kuku, the Catholic bishop of el-Obeid, in a Christmas statement. “At the same time, our leaders continue saying: We fight to the last person.”
Trille Kuku said this situation of despair should not be allowed to obscure the people’s future and that of the country.
Despite faith leaders’ persistent calls for peace and dialogue, several attempts at peace have failed, leaving a large area of the country insecure and inaccessible to humanitarian groups.
In November, President Donald Trump announced plans for the United States to work with other members of the Squad — the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt — along with partners to end the war in Sudan.
