A Sudanese family that expelled an 18-year-old relative from their home in a refugee camp in South Sudan for accepting Christ has dragged a pastor to jail on accusations of kidnapping, sources said.
Hassan Ibrahim Kaki, the Muslim brother of recently converted Amona Ibrahim Kaki, on Jan. 20 forcibly dragged Pastor Joseph Shawish of Glory Baptist Church in Ajoang Thok refugee camp to the camp police station, a local source said on condition of anonymity.
Police were still holding him in custody but have not charged him with a crime, the source said.
Amona Kaki, a refugee from Sudan’s Nuba Mountains area living in the Ajoung Thok refugee camp, put her faith in Christ in December after secretly reading the Bible for two years. After her family drove her from home on Jan. 8, she initially took refuge in another house in the refugee camp before seeking safety in a church leader’s home outside of the camp, the source said.
Her Muslim family has issued continuous threats against the church demanding her return, he said.
“The family says that the church will face consequences and that they will not release the pastor from the jail because they believe he was the one who made the girl change her religion,” the source said.
Church leaders have declined to return her to the family, saying she would be at high risk of violence.
“I wouldn’t allow her to go back, because I know very well the reaction of the family,” said one church leader. “I always talk with them, and they are not happy with the decision of the lady. So, I want the girl to stay with me because she is very young, and it’s risky for her to return.”
Amona Kaki she fears for her life if she were to return home.
“My mother took a stone and chased me away from the house, and my older brother told me that we will never stay together in one house, and that one of us must die,” she told a source. “He said as long he is alive, he will never allow me to live in the house.”
Amona Kaki had found a Bible in the room of her older brother while he was away traveling. As she was using the room for her studies, she began secretly reading the Bible daily, and during exams she prayed for God to help her. As the Lord answered her prayers, she said, she put her faith in Christ.
She attended a church service on Nov. 30 and revealed her faith to the church on Dec. 25. A Muslim who saw her attending a church service reported it to her family.
Church leaders are urging the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to intervene and provide protection and resettlement for such cases. Regionally, church leaders have raised concerns about lack of protection for refugees in East Africa who convert to Christianity.
Sudan is 93 percent Muslim, with adherents of ethnic traditional religion 4.3 percent of the population, while Christians constitute 2.3 percent, according to Joshua Project.
Sudan was ranked No. 4 among the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian in Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List (WWL). Sudan had dropped out of the top 10 of the WWL list for the first time in six years when it first ranked No. 13 in 2021.
The U.S. State Department in 2019 removed Sudan from the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) that engage in or tolerate “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom” and upgraded it to a watch list. Sudan had previously been designated as a CPC from 1999 to 2018.
In December 2020, the State Department removed Sudan from its Special Watch List.
