Sudanese flees persecution

December 14, 2009


Howida's Muslim brother and her ex-husband began searching for her in Cairo earlier this year after a relative reported her whereabouts to them. While there, her brother and ex-husband tried to seize her 10-year-old son from school.

“I’m afraid of my brother finding us,” said the 38-year-old Howida, who has moved to another area. “Their aim is to take us back to Sudan, and there they will force us to return to the Islamic faith or sentence us to death according to Islamic law.”

“In 2004, I started to see a vision of Christ speaking to me,” she said. “When I shared it with my friend, who is a Muslim, she said that she used to hear these things from Christians.”  This comment spurred Howida to seek out a Christian friend who told her about Jesus Christ and prayed with her.

“After that time, I begun to see more visions from Christ saying, ‘He is Christ the Good Shepherd,” she said.

Fearing that relatives might discover she was a Christian, in 2007 she escaped with her then-8-year-old son. They tried to prevent her leaving.  “They destroyed my passport, but through the assistance of a Christian friend, I acquired a new passport and secretly left,” she told Compass by e-mail.

Her peace in Egypt was short-lived; earlier this year, while Howida secretly attended church as she stayed with a Muslim relative in Cairo, the relative found out about her conversion to Christianity and notified her brother and ex-husband in Sudan.

They arrived in Cairo in July.  She had found lodging at a church in Cairo that houses a refugee ministry, but as it became clear that her brother and ex-husband were searching for her, ministry officials moved her and her son to an apartment.  The two Muslim men went to her son’s school to take him back to Sudan. It was a Christian school, and the director refused to hand the boy over to them.  Since then she has been in hiding, and all familial financial support has vanished.

Howida said her brother and ex-husband sought to kill her for apostasy, or leaving Islam – with the support of relatives back in Sudan and others in the community, members of the Shaingia tribe who practice a strict form of Islam.

Fearing forcible repatriation to Sudan, Howida tried to go to Israel; Egyptian authorities arrested her at the border and jailed her for two months. During that time her son was put in an Islamic children’s home. A Muslim family had adopted him, but she was able to win back custody after leaving jail in October.

“We have stopped going out of the apartment or even going to church,” she said. “My son can no longer go to school daily as before. We cannot live our lives as before. I cannot now participate in the Bible study or fellowships – I’m now depending only on myself for growing spiritually, and for prayer and Bible study.”

~ adapted from Compass Direct News