A brazen attack on a church compound in Sudan’s capital Khartoum has raised concerns that tensions between Sudan and South Sudan are no longer contained to the volatile border separating the two countries.

 

Located in Khartoum’s Al-Jerif neighbourhood, the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church, which has a congregation partly comprised of Southerners, is part of a larger compound that houses a number of other services, including a school. The structure was left in shambles after a mob of hundreds of people stormed the premises on Saturday, April 21. Whole rooms were ransacked, materials looted and part of the grounds set ablaze.

 

 

The weeks leading up to the attack were marked by increasingly acrimonious rhetoric against South Sudan, as sporadic clashes between the two countries erupted along the oil-rich border. On Friday, April 20, South Sudanese forces withdrew from a Sudanese oil field near the town of Heglig, a move seen as a major victory for Sudan’s government, which claimed it had expelled the South by force. The same day in Khartoum, an imam at a mosque located near the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church, known for his extremist views, allegedly incited his followers to attack the church by declaring a “jihad” against Christians. Christianity is one of the major religions practiced in South Sudan, whereas Sudan is predominately Muslim.

 

After decades of fighting between the north and the south, South Sudan officially split from Sudan in July 2011 following a referendum. Now, with the United Nations reporting that South Sudanese civilians have been killed in aerial bombings by Sudanese aircraft, the two countries appear to be on the brink of an all-out war.