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The Watchman

They took the pastor and his sons by night. The next day they killed another shepherd.

They took the pastor and his sons by night. The next day they killed another shepherd.

They came to the pastor's house in Heiban after the fighting had already emptied the streets. On the night of July 23, armed men from a breakaway faction of the Sudan People's Liberation Army-North took Rev. Yaqob Ibrahim Tia of the Sudanese Church of Christ from his home in Heiban town, South Kordofan state, in Sudan's Nuba Mountains. They took his two sons, ages 17 and 20, a 15-year-old nephew, and his brother Daniel Ibrahim with him.

No ransom demand has followed. That silence is its own message. Church sources told Morning Star News the abduction appears aimed at destabilizing the area, not at money.

One day later, the same militants killed a pastor.

Rev. Adel Idris Jongool served the Episcopal Church of Sudan in the Dabbi area of Heiban County. Morning Star News reports he was killed on July 24; a later report gave July 25. The record is thin on the hour and the day, as it often is in the Nuba Mountains, where news travels by foot and by prayer chain before it reaches any wire. What is not in dispute is that he is dead, and that he is the second clergyman killed in this small stretch of Sudan in five weeks. On June 19, militants from the same breakaway faction killed a Catholic priest and a church guard in Kauda as they protested the looting of church property.

Around the same attacks, the militants seized scores of Christians near Korkel Theological College. Anglican Ink, citing the Diocese of Heiban, reports 32 captives have since been released in stages. Others remain missing, Rev. Tia and his family among those still unaccounted for.

"There is a growing targeting against the church leaders in the area," said Fadi Ibrahim Tia, a Catholic priest and brother of the abducted pastor.

The men responsible broke away from the SPLA-N, the rebel movement that has controlled much of the Nuba Mountains for years. Roughly 1,500 fighters mutinied and withdrew into the mountains, and reports from the region say they draw fighters from Otoro tribal forces, with Morning Star News citing claims of backing from Islamic extremist groups. We cannot independently verify that last claim, and we tell you so plainly. Sudan's wider civil war, which began in April 2023 when the Rapid Support Forces turned on the Sudanese Armed Forces, has left the Nuba Mountains contested, hungry, and largely cut off.

The church has answered the only way it knows. Bishop Elsir Hassan Kuku of the Diocese of Heiban called the killing unacceptable and said the church has "begun renewed efforts in our peace and reconciliation programme." He asked the world for prayer and support. "We urge all parties involved in the conflict to respect church leaders and religious institutions," he said.

The Nuba Mountains hold one of the oldest stories of Christian endurance in Africa. Through decades of bombardment under the old regime in Khartoum, believers there worshiped in caves and under trees, and the church grew. The men now targeting its shepherds are not the old enemy. They are new, local, and close, which makes the fear sharper. When a pastor can be taken from his bed by men from the next valley, every congregation in the county feels the door shake.

And yet: 32 captives have walked home. Released in stages, by captors who took them to sow terror. Their neighbors met them on the paths. The church in Heiban buried one shepherd this week and kept praying another one home. That is the whole condition of the Nuba church in one sentence, grief in one hand, stubborn hope in the other.

Pray for Rev. Yaqob Ibrahim Tia, for his sons, his nephew, and his brother Daniel, that they would be kept and released. Pray for the family and flock of Rev. Adel Idris Jongool, and for Bishop Kuku's peace effort, that men with guns would hear an older authority. Pray for the ones still missing whose names have not reached us.

One concrete action: Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Morning Star News are among the few carrying firsthand reporting out of the Nuba Mountains. Share this story, and write to your representative asking that the protection of civilians and clergy in South Kordofan be raised in any US engagement on Sudan's war. Silence is the militia's ally. Do not give it yours.

Sources

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