A Church in Omdurman Faces Demolition After Warning
On July 21, land authorities warned the Church of Christ in Sudan, a congregation of about 300 people, that its building could be torn down.
A church in Omdurman, Sudan, could be demolished at any moment. On July 21, land authorities gave the Church of Christ in Sudan an unannounced warning, Morning Star News reported.
The building is in the Al-Murzouq neighborhood, block 59, in Omdurman, the city across the Nile from Khartoum. Officials claimed the building sits on public land and is therefore illegal.
The papers exist; the paperwork is what gets stuck
The congregation did not show up empty-handed. Its leaders presented deeds and property titles dating back decades: the church was built in the early 1980s. With those documents, they objected to the warning.
«The papers exist; the paperwork is what gets stuck»
Officials sent them to the land authorities in Kereri, in Omdurman. There, Pastor Tia Alasara Malasa Kuku said, they were redirected to the Ministry of Religious Affairs. That office referred the file to the Directorate of Engineering and Urban Planning, where it remains stalled. "Dealing with churches is difficult here," the pastor said (translation by Sígueme).
The congregation was first given two weeks to resolve the case. After the deadline passed, a one-week extension came in the first week of August. With the file stuck, the pastor says the risk of demolition remains open: the authorities talk about public land, and the leaders respond that they are being targeted.
Another threat south of Khartoum, and a precedent
The case is not isolated. On June 7, a branch of the Sudan Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Mayo Angola, south of Khartoum, received a similar notice. The planning director of the Jebel Aulia district and an engineer from the land department told the leaders that the building could be demolished at any moment, without giving a date. The warning merely asked them to be ready.
The authorities claimed, without presenting evidence, that the church sits on a road, which the church denies, and that the land is not zoned for religious use. Christians in the country have pointed out for years that no land is allocated for churches, and that this gap is later used as a pretext.
On July 8, 2025, without warning, bulldozers, police and armed personnel arrived at midday at the Pentecostal Church compound in El-Haj Yousif, East Nile district, in northern Khartoum. They tore down the worship hall and the administrative offices, built in the early 1990s, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide. They did not ask for property papers; they later said the compound fell under a plan to remove "unregulated" buildings from Khartoum state, according to Open Doors.
A small minority, heavy pressure
Sudan is 93% Muslim; Christians make up 2.3% of the population, according to Joshua Project. On Open Doors' 2026 World Watch List, the country ranks fourth among the 50 hardest places to be a Christian, one spot higher than the previous year.
The official records show years of less pressure. The U.S. State Department removed Sudan from its list of Countries of Particular Concern in 2019 and moved it to a watch list; it had been on the former from 1999 to 2018. In December 2020, it removed it from the special watch list as well.
For a congregation of 300 people in Omdurman, those changes do not stop a bulldozer. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:10, ESV).
This week you can pray for the Church of Christ in Sudan: for Pastor Malasa Kuku, for the families who gather in Al-Murzouq, and for a legal way forward for their file. If you want to go further, ask at your church how to support brothers and sisters living under pressure for their faith, and share this story with someone who will pray with you.
