UPPER KAUDA, Sudan — Forces linked to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North killed a Catholic pastor and two education workers at Upper Kauda St. Vincent Catholic Parish in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains after a 48-hour ultimatum expired at 1 p.m. on June 19, according to International Christian Concern and local church leaders.
The ultimatum was issued by Izzat Kuku, a Muslim leader commanding SPLM-N forces currently in coalition with the Rapid Support Forces. It ordered Pastor Youhana Al-Amin and those with him to leave the parish compound. When the deadline passed, SPLM-N fighters moved on the parish. Pastor Al-Amin was killed inside the compound. Security guard Youna Markos and storekeeper John Adam were beaten and left seriously injured. Two staff members from the Department of Education were also killed during the assault.
“What happened in Kauda was a calculated plot by the Islamic Movement,” Chief Kuku Aldkhor Tangila said. “Everything we had heard about them was carried out in our village. Children were killed. Women were raped. Pastors were murdered. Our homes and properties were looted. This was not random violence; it was a deliberate demonstration of their intentions against our people.”
The attack did not stop at the parish walls. Surrounding areas including Jabadi, Joper, and nearby neighborhoods were looted and set ablaze, with families fleeing into the hills. The parish had long served as a center of worship, education, and humanitarian care for a community living amid Sudan’s civil war — making it both a lifeline and a target.
“As the Church and as the Council of Churches, we strongly condemn these atrocities carried out under the watch of the SPLM-N,” Pastor Yacoub said. “They have killed our children, our youth, and our pastors. We call on the government to examine whether these actions align with the manifesto they claim to uphold. We stand firmly against such a movement and the suffering it has brought upon our people.”
Survivors described scenes of children burning inside their homes. Benjamin Osman Arid, a church member, said the violence was framed as punishment for eight commanders who had supposedly disobeyed the movement. “The attack was disguised as punishment for eight commanders who supposedly disobeyed the movement, but that can never justify the massacre of our children,” Arid said. “We watched some of our little ones burn inside their homes. I myself have lost my children. I do not even know if they are still alive. Right now, we are hiding in caves, living in constant fear that the attackers will return.”
Sudan’s civil war, now in its third year, has produced overlapping conflicts in which Christian communities in the Nuba Mountains face persistent targeting by Islamist-aligned factions within shifting military coalitions. No international body has announced an investigation into the Upper Kauda attack.