When fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began in April 2023, Sefain Nagy took shelter at St. George Coptic Orthodox Church in the Masalma area of Omdurman, a city in east central Sudan.
At least 25 other Christians huddled there with Nagy, including 15 orphaned girls ages 10 to 25 already living at the church, several middle-aged women, and six elderly men. At night, the frightened group gathered in the church’s sanctuary to sing hymns and pray. They rarely had enough food to eat or access to drinking water, but a group of young Christian men arranged for low-cost meals from community kitchens, locally called takkiyas, to be delivered to them despite constant shelling.
Then a month later, at about 10:30 p.m., Nagy heard the roar of a car carrying five members of the paramilitary group RSF pulling up to the church. The militia shot at the church’s walls, smashed the front door, and forced their way into the building.
“They asked us, ‘What are you here for?’” Nagy recalled. “I told [them] we had prayer. We were praying.”
The RSF soldiers then beat the Christians, grabbed jewelry from the women, and attempted to take away the orphaned girls. When Nagy resisted them by trying to block them from entering the girls’ rooms and leaving the church, one of the soldiers hit his head from behind with a gun and shot him in the right leg. Then the RSF tried to drive off with the girls in one of the cars parked at the church, but the engine failed.
“Thank God the car wouldn’t start, and they couldn’t take the orphan girls,” Nagy said…
As Sudan’s civil war forces millions from their homes, basic needs are dwindling in camps for internally displaced persons.https://t.co/POHC4hOhC9
— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) May 18, 2026
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