Sudanese bishop ‘cannot eat’ after beating by militia

“We condemn the violence against the innocent bishop and servant for all,” said Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Yambio-Tombura.

A Sudanese bishop suffered severe injuries in an attack by paramilitaries, leaving him unable to eat solid food.

Members of the Rapid Support Force (RSF) seized Bishop Yunan Tombe Trille Kuku Andali of El-Obeid, subjected him to a beating and threatened to execute him as he travelled back to his diocese from a meeting in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.

He had attended a Eucharistic Congress on 24 November and celebrations for the Golden Jubilee of the Sudan and South Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference, of which he is president. The conference members called on the authorities to protect Andali following the attack.

“We condemn the violence against the innocent bishop and servant for all,” said Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Yambio-Tombura, in South Sudan. “We ask respect for this man of God and for all human beings,” he told The Tablet.

“We are deeply saddened and troubled by the news,” said Bishop Remijo Adam of Wau. He said Andali had told him in a text message that RSF gunmen had detained him and an aide as they crossed the border at the South Sudanese town of Renk, and beat him on the face, neck and the side of the head. They had already been robbed by soldiers of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) during their travel.

“I can’t eat food and worse of it, we narrowly missed martyrdom,” said Andali in the message, explaining that the paramilitaries had been preparing to execute him and his companion when an RSF commander ordered their release.

Some reports said the paramilitaries detained the bishop because he is a Nuba, from an ethnic group in the Nuba Mountains region in South Kordofan State, which is controlled by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North – a breakaway faction in Sudan’s civil war, separate from the RSF and SAF.

Since last year, battles between SAF and RSF have killed an estimated 61,000 people and displaced more than 11 million.  Both sides have been accused of war crimes and ethnic violence. Andali has won praise for remaining with his diocese despite the fighting.

Aid workers have described the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Sudan as the world’s worst, with 25 million in need humanitarian aid and an estimated 500,000 displaced in Darfur region facing famine, according to the UN agencies.

A missionary sister recently evacuated from Khartoum appealed for renewed prayers for an end to the war.

“Keep praying for Sudan so that this senseless and tragic war comes to an end,” said Sr Teresa Roszkowska, one of the five Daughters of Mary Help of Christians who was blockaded for a year and four months in the Dar Mariam mission in the Sudanese capital, together with a Salesian priest and several South Sudanese citizens, several dozen of whom remain in Dar Mariam relying on humanitarian aid.

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