CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC Central African Republic (CAR) is a poor and conflict-wracked French-speaking, mostly Christian (76%) landlocked state. CAR’s 13.8 percent Muslim minority lives mostly in the northernmost prefecture of Vakaga, wedged between Chad and Darfur, Sudan. In December 2012, a very well-equipped Islamic army named Seleka – an alliance of local and foreign (mostly Chadian and Sudanese) Islamic militias – embarked on a campaign to rape, butcher, loot and kill its way across Central African Republic. For months, the government of CAR pleaded for assistance from France (the former colonial power, which already had troops stationed in the country) and the US – but to no avail. South Africa alone provided assistance, but it was not enough. On Sunday 24 March 2013, Seleka (which means “alliance”) stormed and seized control of the capital, Bangui. The horrific fighting which ensued has totally shredded the social fabric of the state. See: Churches targeted as Muslim rebels seize Bangui in an orgy of raping, killing and looting. Today, CAR remains divided between a government-controlled south and a chaotic, lawless, Islamic militant occupied north (includes the resource-rich centre, where militias are fighting each other for control of gold and diamond mines). Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain displaced, dependent on humanitarian aid, and gravely imperilled. Even the capital, Bangui, remains imperilled. It is It is a Christian crisis of monumental proportions. Recommended: ETHIOPIA AND THE HORN OF AFRICA ETHIOPIA is an immensely strategic nation and the key to peace and prosperity in the Horn and Red Sea regions. A battle currently rages between those with a vision for a strong, united Ethiopia versus ethno-nationalist and separatists who would tear Ethiopia apart along ethnic lines. The leading proponents of ethno-nationalism are the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF; historically led by Marxists) and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF; officially secular but dominated by Muslims, many of whom are radical Islamists). NOTE: the TPLF and OLF are organisations; they do not represent all Tigreans nor all Oromo. Many (if not most) Tigreans and Oromo are committed Ethiopians. A strong, united, prosperous Ethiopia would not merely be a blessing to all Ethiopians, but to Africans across the whole Horn and Red Sea region. On the other hand, whilst ethno-nationalism might empower some, it would trigger widespread ethnic cleansing of minorities and gross insecurity nationwide. Those most at risk are the mostly Orthodox Christian ethnic Amhara (who also happen to be one of the most impoverished people groups in the world). For the ethnic Amhara – who have long intermarried and lived and worked as ethnic minorities outside of Amhara State – the collapse of Ethiopia would trigger a Christian crisis of monumental proportions. NOTE: Both Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Omoro nationalist figurehead Jawar Mohammed are products of ethnic-religious intermarriage. Both have a Muslim Omoro father (which according to Islam means both men were born Muslim) and both have an Orthodox Christian Amhara mother. While Jawar has retained his Muslim identity and radicalised, PM Abiy, embraced his mother’s Christian faith, eventually aligning, as an adult, with Protestant Christianity. Commencing 1991, the TPLF-dominated Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government Balkanised Ethiopia, a division which was institutionalised in the constitution of 1994. Recommended: Since February 2018, the new government led by PM Abiy Ahmed has been working to end TPLF hegemony, broker peace with Eritrea, unite the peoples as Ethiopians, and prevent a Balkan-style ethnic-religious conflagration. The stakes could not be higher! Recommended: On 29 October 2020, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) released a report by its Senior Study Group on Peace and Security in the Red Sea Arena. The report notes that political transitions in Sudan and Ethiopia have “set the region on a transformative new trajectory toward reform and stability”. However, it warns that state failure “would send a tidal wave of instability across Africa and the Middle East” (page 4). “Given their populations of approximately 45 million and 105 million, Sudan and Ethiopia are respectively more than two times and six times the size of pre-war Syria. Fragmentation of either country would be the largest state collapse in modern history, likely leading to mass inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflict; a dangerous vulnerability to exploitation by extremists; an acceleration of illicit trafficking, including of arms; as well as a humanitarian and security crisis at the crossroads of Africa and the Middle East on a scale that would overshadow the existing conflicts in South Sudan, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen” (page 10). Recommended: Not only are the TPLF and OLF cooperating with each other to advance their shared ethno-nationalist agenda, but hostile foreign powers that stand to gain from a destabilised Ethiopia – for example Egypt, and the Sudanese military and deep state – are supporting the TPLF and OLF to that end. Meanwhile, Islamic terrorist organisations al-Qaeda and Islamic State are poised to pounce. Islamic State has been recruiting in Amharic and training for jihad in Ethiopia since at least July 2019. See: Ethiopia: Church Protests – Watershed Days NIGERIA Despite being resource-rich and having the largest economy in Africa, Nigeria has more people living in poverty than any other country on earth. The problem is corruption. In 2019, Transparency International ranked Nigeria at 146 of 180, confirming it as one of the most corrupt nations on earth. The issue imperilling Nigerian Christians is that massive corruption at the highest levels of Government and Defence is prolonging the conflict with Boko Haram. Government and military elites are exploiting the conflict as a means of enriching themselves. Investigations into the Armsgate scandal revealed massive fraud in military procurement, whereby government funds have been secured on the basis of fake contracts for resources which were never delivered – “everything from food and ammunition to firearms, helicopters and Alpha jets, totalling as much as US$15 billion”. Recommended: Corruption explains why Nigerian soldiers are deployed into conflict zones with insufficient rations and malfunctioning weapons, and why those who survive return defeated and demoralised. Corruption explains why insecurity has escalated to crisis levels and why Boko Haram and its offshoots have not been defeated but instead have grown stronger. Corruption explains why a catastrophic Christian crisis involving ethnic cleansing and genocide persists throughout Nigeria’s North and Middle Belt, bringing untold suffering to multitudes. It is a Christian crisis of monumental proportions. Recommended: As violence and lawlessness spin out control, Nigeria is in danger of becoming a failed state or worse, of tearing apart by way of catastrophic civil war reminiscent of the Nigerian Civil War / Biafra War of 1967 –1970. Additional news source specialising in Nigeria: SUDAN Before the April 2019 ousting of racist, Islamist, Arab-supremacist President Omar al-Bashir, Sudan had been one of the most corrupt and violent persecutors of Christians and black Africans anywhere in the world. Between December 2018 and April 2019 – in what must go down in history as one of the greatest people-movements of the early 21st Century – multitudes of Sudanese, led primarily by doctors and other members of the Sudanese Professionals Association, rose up to declare, “Enough!”. Recommended: Even after the military toppled the regime (seizing power for itself), the protesters bravely stood their ground. Declaring, “No! Still not enough!” they demanded civilian rule. In the pre-dawn hours of 3 June 2019, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (also known as Hemeti) deployed Sudanese military troops and his Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to attack peaceful protesters conducting a “sit-in” in protest of continued military rule. At least 120 unarmed youths were massacred; many more were beaten, shot and raped. [Report by Human Rights Watch]. To avoid more bloodshed, a compromise was reached thanks primarily to pressure from international community, in particular the African Union and Ethiopia. On Sunday 4 August 2019, representatives from Sudan’s ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) signed a Constitutional Charter (CC) which, theoretically, should pave the way for democratic transition. An 11-member Sovereignty Council, comprising both military and civilian personnel, was established as a transitional administration ahead of elections slated for late 2022. Recommended: REFORMS On 7 September 2019, in a televised interview on the Al-Arabiya Network, Sudan's new Minister of Religious Affairs, Nasr al-Din Mufreh, explained that Sudan is a pluralistic nation ruled by secular law. In an interview published on 3 November 2019 in the international Arabic newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat, Mufreh said Sudan would fight extremism in mosques and empower women in society. He reiterated his invitation to Sudanese Jews (inviting them to return as citizens) and lamented past persecution of Christians, saying “Christians and all people of other faiths and religions are free to practise their rituals”. In December 2019 the transitional government declared Christmas Day a national public holiday. On 11 March 2020, Minister of Religious Affairs, Nasr al-Din Mufreh, signed an order abolishing the committees imposed on churches under former president Omar al-Bashir. On 10 July 2020, Sudan’s Justice Minister, Nasredeen Abdulbari tweeted: “The Human Rights and Justice System Reform Commission Act 2020 has been signed, [along with] the Miscellaneous Amendments (Fundamental Rights and Freedoms) Act 2020, the Anti-Informatics Crime (Amendment) Act 2020 and the Criminal Code (Amendment) 2020. The commission established under the law passed will lead a comprehensive and profound process of reforming the human rights and justice system, which during the years of the regime has experienced ruin - an unprecedented devastation in the history of Sudan.” NOTE: The Miscellaneous Amendments (Fundamental Rights and Freedoms) Act 2020 removes a raft of Sharia-based provisions, amongst them: flogging is abolished, and apostasy (previously a capital crime) is now decriminalised. In a televised interview on 11 July 2020, the Justice Minister confirmed that changes to the law will ensure all citizens enjoy religious freedom and equality in citizenship and before the law. “We have dropped all the articles that had led to any kind of discrimination,” he said. “We assure our people that the legal reformation will continue until we drop all the laws violating the human rights in Sudan.” Led by their fundamentalist clerics, Sudan’s Islamists took to the streets in protest, cursing Justice Minister Nasredeen Abdulbari as an infidel, and calling for jihad against the government of Prime Minister Hamdok (who had already survived one assassination attempt). Recommended: PEACE For decades, Khartoum waged war against the politically marginalised and long-persecuted non-Arabs and non-Muslims of Sudan’s periphery. This war eventually led to the break-up of the state and the secession of the predominately Christian, resource-rich south. Even before South Sudan’s secession was complete, Khartoum was waging genocidal war against its resource-rich “new south” – Abyei, South Kordofan’s Nuba Mountains, and Blue Nile – and subsequently, in Darfur. Nuba Mountains: During the 1990s, Khartoum waged a genocidal jihad against the mostly Christian tribes of the Nuba Mountains; a jihad legitimised by a fatwa (religious ruling) from Khartoum’s leading Islamic clerics. It is estimated that at least 100,000 Nuba died as a result of government attacks in 1992-1993 alone. See: On Monday 31 August 2020, after nearly a full year of talks, representatives from Sudan’s Sovereignty Council initialled a peace agreement with representatives from the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), a coalition of rebel groups that have been fighting Khartoum’s Arab-Islamist regime for years. The deal gives the rebels positions in the transitional government and extends greater autonomy to territories under their control. Humanitarian aid groups – long-banned from rebel-held regions – will be invited to return. Rebel fighters will be required to lay down their arms or join the ranks of the as-yet unreformed Sudan Armed Forces (their long-time enemy); a provision many suspect will prove unworkable at this time. A final agreement was signed in Juba, South Sudan, on Saturday 3 October 2020. However, two groups under the SRF umbrella refused to sign. While the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-North (Agar-Arman faction) did sign, the main faction led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu – which is based in the Nuba Mountains and represents the interests of the Nuba peoples – refused on the grounds that the agreement does not address the “root causes” of the conflict: i.e. Islam and centralisation (Arab hegemony). Abdel Wahid al-Nour (a lawyer), who leads a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army in Darfur, also refused to sign for the same reason. Over 2 to 4 September 2020, PM Hamdok and al-Hilu met in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. On the evening of Thursday 3 September, it was announced that the parties had agreed on the necessity of a full political settlement which addresses the root causes of conflict (Islam and centralisation). The government agreed “in principle” to officially separate religion from the state, ending nearly 40 years of Islamic rule in Sudan. Furthermore, the SPLA-N (al-Hilu faction) would be permitted to keep its weapons until “security arrangements are finalised and religion and state are separated”. On Sunday 28 March 2021, the Sudanese government and the SPLA-N (al-Hilu faction) signed a “Declaration of Principles” which paves the way for a final peace agreement by guaranteeing freedom of worship to all while separating religion and the state. The declaration stated that both sides agreed to “the establishment of a civil, democratic federal state in Sudan, wherein, the freedom of religion, the freedom of belief and religious practices and worship shall be guaranteed to all Sudanese people by separating the identities of culture, religion, ethnicity and religion from the state.” “No religion shall be imposed on anyone and the state shall not adopt official religion.” With this breakthrough talks can proceed towards a final peace settlement. In early-mid 2019, at the height of the protest movement, the protestors were encouraged to illustrate their demands, hopes and dreams in murals, which subsequently proliferated across the city. The protesters’ hope and insistence that Sudan be recognised as multi-racial and multi-religious, and that it be free and democratic, was beyond inspirational. See: However: After nearly 40 years of Islamist-military rule, the difficulty of freeing Sudan from the grip of a thoroughly entrenched and heavily invested Islamist Deep State cannot be overstated. Sudan’s Forces for Freedom and Change deserve would need all the help they can get. MILITARY COUP On 25 October 2021, after a week of massive pro-military and then pro-government rival demonstrations, the Sudanese military seized power in Khartoum. Security forces arrested Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, along with other members of the civilian government. Military head, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, announced on state TV that he had declared a state of emergency and was dissolving the transitional government. Thousands of Sudanese poured onto the streets to protest the theft of their “revolution”. At least seven people were killed and 80 wounded in the protests, most from gunshot wounds as military forces fired into the crowds. Army and paramilitary forces closed major roads; Internet access was cut. In the wake of the coup, the Forces for Freedom and Change split into factions. Many fear that fighting could erupt throughout the periphery, in particularly in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains. Bashir Loyalists Rehabilitated Al-Monitor reports (19 April 2022) that, since the military coup of October 2021, the junta has been busy rehabilitating Bashir loyalists and re-building the former regime. Numerous loyalists, including senior officials in former president Omar al-Bashir’s now banned National Congress Party (NCP), have been acquitted, been released from prison, had confiscated assets returned, been appointed to high state positions and re-instated throughout the government. Many suspect the NCP will be revived, albeit with a new name. This party will then support Generals Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) as they lead the country back to Islamist, military rule. According to Al-Monitor, “activists, lawyers and journalists are struggling to keep track of the process in light of the speed at which it is taking place.” Recommended: THE SAHEL The late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi might have been a cruel and eccentric megalomaniac, but he was also a committed anti-Islamist. Through the 1980s, Gaddafi grew increasingly anxious about the rise of fundamentalist Islam, acutely aware of the threat a new generation of radical Islamists and jihadists would pose to the Arab world’s largely secularised, mostly US-allied, non-Islamist dictators. After the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in New York and Washington, Gaddafi renounced Libya’s weapons of mass destruction, and opened all Libya’s facilities to international inspectors who dismantled all Libya’s chemical and nuclear weapons programs, as well as its longest-range ballistic missiles. Normalization followed, and Gaddafi allied with the West in the “War on Terror”. Gaddafi kept Algeria-based al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) hemmed in and hamstrung for years. In August 2011, jihadists advanced on Tripoli under NATO aircover and seized control of the Libyan capital. After extracting Gaddafi from a drainpipe, the jihadists tortured and lynched the former dictator to jubilant shouts of “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is greater). Libya subsequently descended into anarchy. The chaos of Libya quickly bled into the Sahel. Mercenaries, ethnic separatists and jihadist raided Libya’s desert armouries, before heading south to launch campaigns of Islamic terrorism and ethnic separatism. First to be hit was northern Mali, then the north and east of Burkina Faso, and more recently south-west Niger. NOTE: Islam routinely rides to power on the back of grievance and other causes; chief among them, ethnic separatism. The remote and largely ungoverned tri-border region where Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger meet, has become a base for numerous Islamic militias; some aligned with AQIM, some aligned with Islamic State, and some only there to plunder gold, diamonds, and other valuable resources. Despite these states being majority Muslim, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger retain secular democratic governance, respect for religious freedom, a high degree of Christian security, and good inter-religious relations. Today, however, the presence of Islamic terrorist organisations has caused insecurity to escalate markedly. And while the insecurity impacts everyone, it impacts the Christian minority most severely, for the new generation of jihadists regard Christians as blasphemers, infidels, polytheists (for believing in a Trinitarian God) and anti-Islam agents of the West. Islamic militants have attacked, looted, and burned Christian churches and charities, and executed Christians in central Mali’s Mopti region, in neighbouring northern and eastern Burkina Faso, and in western Niger. Along with looting, burning, killing and terrorising, these groups earn considerable income by kidnapping foreigners for ransom. On January 2016, militants aligned with the Mali-based al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) abducted Australian missionary doctor Ken Elliot (known affectionately as “the doctor to the poor”) and his wife Jocelyn, from their home in Baraboule, near Djibo, northern Burkina Faso. Though Jocelyn was subsequently released, Dr Elliot (85) remains a captive to this day. The couple built the hospital in Djibo and had been serving the community there since 1972. See: Recommended: The Next Afghanistan? With French troops pulling out of Mali, many fear the Sahel could become the next Afghanistan. Jihadist groups are preparing to fill the security void, consolidate, and even expand south into the countries of the Gulf of Guinea: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, and Benin, all of which border Burkina Faso. In November 2021, Father Etienne Tandamba, a priest in the diocese of Fada N’Gourma, in eastern Burkina Faso, 120 km due north of the Togo border told Catholic media: “The security situation in the country is worsening day by day, armed groups are advancing … they are subordinating the population to their will... Kidnappings and confiscations are the order of the day... Schools remain closed, as do some chapels, and the state of the city administration is precarious.” The Sahel and Gulf of Guinea states have mixed populations and a tradition of communal harmony, religious freedom, and respect for Christian mission. All this is at risk, as Islamic terrorism sweeps the region. UGANDA Uganda’s 2014 census indicates that Ugandans are 84.5 percent Christians and 13.7 percent are Muslim. Most of Uganda’s Muslims live in Eastern Region. Article 2 of Uganda’s Constitution affirms the supremacy of the Constitution over “any other law or any custom”. The government is secular, freedom of speech and religion are guaranteed, as are the rights of minorities (Articles 2,7,29,36). At independence (1962) Uganda had 18 districts. When Musevini came to power in 1986, there were 33. By the year 2000 there were 56, and by the time of the February 2016 general elections there were 112. In September 2015, parliament approved the creation of 23 more districts: four to become effective on 1 July 2016; with another six to become effective on 1 July 2017; another six on 1 July 2018; followed by seven more to become effective on 1 July 2019. As of July 2020, Uganda is divided into 135 districts along with the capital city of Kampala. While national-level conflict has decreased, it has been replaced with local-level conflict and systemic corruption. Today, Christians living in Muslim majority districts are increasingly finding that the secularism, religious liberty and minority rights enshrined in the constitution are little more than a mirage. While none of the Muslim-dominated districts have as yet declared themselves to be Sharia Districts, the reality is they don’t actually need to, for they already function as de-facto Sharia fiefdoms where Christians may be persecuted with impunity. Recommended: Central African Republic
By Elizabeth Kendal, 13 May 2013.
Central African Republic: help needed to avert civil war and disintegration.
By Elizabeth Kendal, 18 May 2017. Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa
Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia.
Ethiopia: Ethnic Federalism and its Discontents
International Crisis Group, 4 September 2009
Ethiopia-Eritrea: Reforms and Resistance
By Elizabeth Kendal, Religious Liberty Monitoring, 25 June 2018
Final Report and Recommendations of the Senior Study Group on Peace and Security in the Red Sea Arena, 29 October 2020, by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) Senior Study Group on Peace and Security in the Red Sea Arena.
by Elizabeth Kendal, Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin, 18 September 2019
Nigeria
Nigeria’s Fraudulent Election: Will Things Fall Apart?
By Elizabeth Kendal, 28 May 2019.
Corruption is Killing Nigerian Christians,
By Elizabeth Kendal, 19 August 2020
Insecurity Enables Terrorist Expansion
By Elizabeth Kendal, 12 August 2020
Nigeria: Unfolding Genocide? New APPG Report Launched. 15 June 2020
By the All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief (UK)
International Committee on Nigeria, https://iconhelp.org/
Silent Slaughter website: https://www.silentslaughternigeria.com/ (includes an incidence tracker) Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin / Nigeria Sudan
‘New Sudan’ in sight, but not yet in hand,
by Elizabeth Kendal, 15 May 2019
Divine Help Needed if New Sudan is to be Realised,
by Elizabeth Kendal, 21 August 2019.
‘Path of change’ is dangerous and fragile,
by Elizabeth Kendal, 11 March 2020
Background: the Nuba Mountains of southern Kordofan.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
In pictures: The art fuelling Sudan’s revolution.
By Mohanad Hashim, BBC Africa, Khartoum, 5 May 2019
Coup generals bring back party of Sudan’s ousted dictator
By Marc Espanol, Al-Monitor, 19 April 2022. The Sahel
The Sahel cuts through Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Sudan.
Dr. Ken Elliot - Friends of Burkina Faso Medical Clinic (YouTube), 18 January 2016.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UslBlilQSg
The Complex and Growing Threat of Militant Islamist Groups in the Sahel
by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 15 February 2019 Uganda
Uganda Analysis: escalating persecution of Christians in Eastern Region linked to Islamisation, decentralisation, and impunity.
By Elizabeth Kendal, 8 May 2017.