A medical doctor in Sudan was jailed from Sunday to Wednesday evening (Dec. 10) after officials learned he was a Christian, sources said.
In Ad-Damazin, capital of Blue Nile state in southeastern Sudan, Yagoub Jibril Glademea on Sunday (Dec. 7) went to the state Civil Registration office to obtain a national number for his niece, said another medical doctor whose name is withheld for security reasons.
An officer of one of the state Security Cells – units made up of army, police and intelligence officers that have been accused of arbitrary arrests, torture and forced disappearances – learned the religious designation on his ID and asked him why he was a Christian, the source said.
Glademea, who is not a convert from Islam, told the Muslim officer that he had long been a Christian. Upset by his answer, the officer detained him for interrogation, leading to the Security Cell jailing him for three days while denying visits from family members, the source said.
“His brother went this morning [Wednesday, Dec. 10], but he was not allowed to see him,” he said.
Authorities have established Security Cells in most states with broad powers of arrest as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) fight the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The cells have been accused of targeting people suspected of collaborating with the RSF.
A rights group called the Emergency Lawyers described the cells as “a tool of repression and intimidation,” asserting that some arbitrarily arrested prisoners have been released in poor health, put on trial or died in custody, while others were later found dead, according to the Sudan Tribune.
Glademea, originally from Sennar state where he worked as a medical doctor, told those interrogating him that he had worked in Blue Nile state before relocating to Saudi Arabia. Serving as a medical doctor in Saudi Arabia, he returned to Blue Nile state last month to spend Christmas with his family.
On Wednesday (Dec. 10), Glademea confirmed his detention and release that evening on his Facebook page. He posted that as he returned from the Civil Registration office he was asked about his identity and background.
“I want to thank all of you who prayed for me while I was in detention,” he wrote.
Conditions in Sudan have worsened since civil war that broke out between the RSF and the SAF in April 2023. Sudan registered increases in the number of Christians killed and sexually assaulted and Christian homes and businesses attacked, according to Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List (WWL) report.
“Christians of all backgrounds are trapped in the chaos, unable to flee. Churches are shelled, looted and occupied by the warring parties,” the report stated.
Both the RSF and the SAF are Islamist forces that have attacked displaced Christians on accusations of supporting the other’s combatants.
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.
The conflict between the RSF and the SAF, which had shared military rule in Sudan following an October 2021 coup, has terrorized civilians in Khartoum and elsewhere, killing tens of thousands and displacing more than 12 million people within and beyond Sudan’ borders, according to the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR).
The SAF’s Gen. Abdelfattah al-Burhan and his then-vice president, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, were in power when civilian parties in March 2023 agreed on a framework to re-establish a democratic transition the next month, but disagreements over military structure torpedoed final approval.
Burhan sought to place the RSF – a paramilitary outfit with roots in the Janjaweed militias that had helped former strongman Bashir put down rebels – under the regular army’s control within two years, while Dagolo would accept integration within nothing fewer than 10 years.
Both military leaders have Islamist backgrounds while trying to portray themselves to the international community as pro-democracy advocates of religious freedom.
Sudan was ranked No. 5 among the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian in Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List (WWL), down from No. 8 the prior year. 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.
Following two years of advances in religious freedom in Sudan after the end of the Islamist dictatorship under Bashir in 2019, the specter of state-sponsored persecution returned with the military coup of Oct. 25, 2021. After Bashir was ousted from 30 years of power in April 2019, the transitional civilian-military government had managed to undo some sharia (Islamic law) provisions. It outlawed the labeling of any religious group “infidels” and thus effectively rescinded apostasy laws that made leaving Islam punishable by death.
With the Oct. 25, 2021 coup, Christians in Sudan feared the return of the most repressive and harsh aspects of Islamic law.
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.
