Forty-eight-year-old father of three Rev. Yamane Abraha received an ultimatum in Khartoum following a trip to Ethiopia in the autumn of 2015.
“[Sudanese government] security threatened me, saying I would have to appear in court either as a witness, or an accused,” the Evangelical Baptist Church of Khartoum pastor told World Watch Monitor. “But my father was sick, so unlike others I couldn’t escape.”
Abraha was one of several Sudanese Christians gathered abroad to pray for their nation. Among them were Rev. Hassan Taour and Rev. Kuwa Shamal, Sudan Church of Christ pastors from the Nuba Mountains region.
Also attending was Czech Christian aid worker Petr Ja?ek. According to Christian advocacy group Middle East Concern, these three had helped facilitate financial assistance to pay for the medical treatment of a Darfurian university student who had suffered burn wounds when government security officials attacked a campus demonstration in Omdurman, north of the capital, Khartoum.
Sudanese at the meeting suspected there were spies around their Addis Ababa hotel. Then shortly after their return to Khartoum, the police arrested Taour, Shamal and Ja?ek, in December 2015. They have now been in detention for a year. Detained along with them is Abdulmonem Abdumawla, also from Darfur, who helped facilitate the medical treatment for the student.
The four are charged with waging war against the Sudanese state, espionage, conspiracy to carry out criminal acts, and undermining the authority of the state through violence. Trial proceedings finally begun in August have been postponed repeatedly in recent months. They could face the death penalty.
Delayed escape
Abraha was not arrested until three months after his colleagues, on 13 March, and then held for only one day. Security officials ordered him to report back daily, and on 24 March told him he would have to appear in court in the role of his choice: testify against the others, or be charged along with them.
On 26 March his father died.
Abraha gathered his family and travelled eight hours east by bus to bury him in their hometown of Kassala, on the border with Eritrea. And there he dropped off the radar, ditched his mobile phone, and waited.
Two weeks later, he returned to Khartoum and set his plan in motion. Nervously, he checked his surroundings before going to buy a ticket to Egypt.
With his wife, he exchanged notes on paper serviettes, which they soaked and discarded once read. Discreetly, they packed their children’s belongings, lest they tip off authorities at school.
Abraha then checked with a friendly security officer that his name was not on a watch list. And on 20 April, he told his children they would have a family picnic near the airport. Relatives – and kids – were surprised to learn they were saying goodbye.
In Egypt, Abraha is now involved in training for discipleship and church planting, and supervises 15 “house churches” among Sudanese refugees.
Over 31,000 Sudanese in Egypt are registered with the UN High Commission for Refugees, according to its August 2016 report. Unofficial estimates suggest there are well over one million.
Most have fled the ongoing violence in Darfur and the southern regions of Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains, bordering South Sudan.
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