According to reports we are receiving on the email from concerned brothers and sisters who are close to the scene, the “escalating violence against civilians in Sudan’s South Kordofan state is a major humanitarian catastrophe in the making, with an estimated 300,000 people besieged, cut off from relief aid, and unable to escape fighting.” Estimates are that up to 40,000 people have fled fighting between Sudanese government troops, Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), and members of the former southern rebel group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), in Kadugli, the capital of Sudan’s oil-producing border state of South Kordofan. Shelling and aerial bombardment has been going on in civilian areas. People have locked themselves in their homes without food or water, for fear of being killed. Others have fled to the Nuba mountains, where they are being hunted down like animals by helicopter gunships, says the Sudan Council of Churches, an umbrella organization representing all Sudanese churches.

Compass Direct News reports that: “Military intelligence agents killed one Christian, and Islamic militants sympathetic to the government slaughtered another last week after attacking churches in Sudan’s embattled South Kordofan state… Armed conflict in Kadugli broke out between southern and northern militaries on June 6 after northern forces seized Abyei last month. On June 8, Islamic militants loyal to the SAF slaughtered a young Christian man by sword in Kadugli Market, the sources said… The Islamic militias were heard shouting Allahu-akbar (God is greater) as they began shooting at a Roman Catholic Church building the same day… On Sunday (June 12), North Kordofan Gov. Mutasim Mirghani Zaki El-deen declared jihad (holy war) on the Nuba people, most of whom are Christians. Christians in the area said they are still traumatized as result of the atrocities committed against them by Sudan security forces and militias loyal to the government military. Sources in Sudan said Christians are calling their brothers and sisters worldwide to pray for the crisis in South Kordofan.” Let us join them in praying that the spirit of violence and death will be bound and that peace will be restored between North and South Sudan.