Muslim mob sets church in Khartoum ablaze
Source: Agencies |
April 23, 2012, Monday
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A MUSLIM mob has set ablaze a Catholic church frequented by Southern Sudanese in the capital Khartoum, witnesses and media reports said yesterday.
The church in Khartoum's Al-Jiraif district was built on a disputed plot of land but the Saturday night incident appeared to be part of the fallout from ongoing hostilities between Sudan and South Sudan over control of an oil town on their ill-defined border.
Sudan and South Sudan have been drawing closer to a full scale war in recent months over the unresolved issues of sharing oil revenues and a disputed border.
Last week, South Sudanese troops seized Heglig, which the southerners call Panthou, sending Sudanese troops fleeing. The Khartoum government later claimed to have regained the town.
The witnesses and newspapers said a mob of several hundreds shouting insults at southerners torched the church. Fire engines could not put out the fire, they added.
One newspaper, Al-Sahafah, said the church was part of a complex that included a school and dormitories. Ethiopian refugees living in the Khartoum also used the church.
The mostly Christian and animist South Sudan seceded from Sudan in 2011, some six years after a peace deal ended over two decades of war between them. But tens of thousands of southerners remain in Sudan, a legacy of the civil war that drove them to seek safety in the north.
The church in Khartoum's Al-Jiraif district was built on a disputed plot of land but the Saturday night incident appeared to be part of the fallout from ongoing hostilities between Sudan and South Sudan over control of an oil town on their ill-defined border.
Sudan and South Sudan have been drawing closer to a full scale war in recent months over the unresolved issues of sharing oil revenues and a disputed border.
Last week, South Sudanese troops seized Heglig, which the southerners call Panthou, sending Sudanese troops fleeing. The Khartoum government later claimed to have regained the town.
The witnesses and newspapers said a mob of several hundreds shouting insults at southerners torched the church. Fire engines could not put out the fire, they added.
One newspaper, Al-Sahafah, said the church was part of a complex that included a school and dormitories. Ethiopian refugees living in the Khartoum also used the church.
The mostly Christian and animist South Sudan seceded from Sudan in 2011, some six years after a peace deal ended over two decades of war between them. But tens of thousands of southerners remain in Sudan, a legacy of the civil war that drove them to seek safety in the north.
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