Eritrean Christians flee to Sudan
ICC NOTE: The situation in Eritrea must be so incredibly horrible for people actually risk walking across the Sahara desert to get out of their country. Please pray for the Christians in Eritrea.
Jim Jennings, Norm Nelson
4/27/07 Eritrea For the full article (MNN) — Torture, beatings, arrests, imprisonment. These are among the brutal acts imposed by the Communist government of Eritrea against Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians in this East-African nation.
As a result, thousands of Christian refugees are fleeing Eritrea in search of safety in neighboring Sudan – primarily in the capital city of Khartoum . They come on foot, walking hundreds of miles with little or no food or water.
Those who make it to Khartoum find shelter in crowded, squalid, ill-equipped structures where they fight a torturous battle for legal refugee status and for some source of economic support from which to eke out their temporary survival.
Some of the refugees move on from Khartoum , seeking to walk across the Sahara Desert , (can you imagine?) into Libya and on to the Mediterranean Sea, with the objective of “sailing” to freedom in Europe .
Most of them die in the desert or at sea.
Those who stay in Khartoum find support in the Eritrean Christian Churches there – one consisting of 500 members, and another of 300 members. The spiritual fellowship of these congregations is vital. But still, physical and economic survival is tenuous with overcrowded living conditions, illness, poverty, lack of security, and the efforts of Eritrean secret agents seeking to assassinate leaders of the Christian community.
