Churches suffer amid East Africa human rights crisis

The deepening human rights crisis in the region has led to the normalisation of attacks on civilians, according to Human Rights Watch.

Churches have been among the victims of human rights abuses in conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan and Ethiopia, which Human Rights Watch said demanded sanctions in in 2026 Word Report.

The report published on 4 February said brutal attacks against civilians by unaccountable military groups – including national armies, tribal forces and militias – had become normalised in the Horn and East Africa.

Catholic churches and properties have been victims of the violence in conflicts condemned by bishops and Church leaders as “needless”. In one recent incident, militants attacked and looted a parish in Ethiopia during a clash between warring tribes.

Fr David Kulandai Samy of the Itang Catholic Mission, in the Apostolic Vicariate of Gambella and Illubabor, told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that his mission was attacked on 18 December during fighting between the Anyuak and Nuer tribes.

He said fighters from the Nuer tribe arrived at dawn and turned the presbytery and parish land into a base for its conflict with the Anyuak. A heavily armed group of Nuer people arrived a few hours later and broke into houses, robbing people at gunpoint.

“A large number of people entered the parish house and started breaking the doors of the presbytery with heavy tools like pickaxes and metal bars and looting all the valuables and loading them into the trucks,” the priest said.

The assailants took away Mass kits, altar clothes and stole a statue of Jesus and destroyed a new crib. A portable generator, welding machine, drill, television, projector, refrigerator and stove were also stolen, among other utensils.

“Fr David’s parish is badly flooded for substantial stretches each year and there have been flare-ups of ethnic violence before as well – but none as bad as this,” said Dr Caroline Hull, national director of ACN UK.

In Sudan, where the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are fighting government forces in a years-long civil war, churches and properties have suffered attacks, occupation and damage. Fr Luka Jomo, a parish priest in El-Fasher, died on 12 June 2025 after the Rapid Support Forces bombed his church.

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