Istanbul, Turkey - A suicide bomber in military fatigues killed five young people at a church meeting last week in Sudan’s Upper Nile State, according to eyewitnesses.
The man detonated a grenade on his belt after approaching a group of 34 young people holding an outdoor church meeting in Khorfulus, 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Malakal last Thursday evening (September 27).
Khorfulus authorities have taken the position that the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) soldier was drunk and accidentally set off the grenade, a church leader said. But according to a Christian support organization, one general said that he believed the goal of the attack was to intimidate churches.
The Rev. Joseph Maker Gordon, acting secretary general of the Presbyterian Church in Sudan, told Compass he was on a week-long visit to Khorfulus at the time of the bombing.
“We were praying in another church [nearby] when we heard the explosion at 10 p.m.,” Rev. Gordon said. The pastor immediately went to the scene of the attack to find that four young people and the bomber had been killed.
Eyewitnesses told Rev. Gordon that the man had approached a group of Christian youth who were singing worship songs outside of a Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) church building. The property, in use by other church groups, had no fence around it, allowing the man to walk directly up to the group of children and teenagers, Rev. Gordon said.
“Then he took out a match and began to smoke, and the children heard a strange noise,” Rev. Gordon said. “Some children started to gather around the man to see what was making the noise, and unfortunately the bomb went off.”
According to Rev. Gordon, a young boy, two young girls, a young man and the bomber died immediately. Donguei Matok Chan, 8, Dhieu Nyandual, 20, and the two 11-year-old girls, Nyaniok Ryak Chol Ayoum and Nyawyly Kon Rwaj, were buried in Khorfulus.
Rev. Gordon said that a fifth young man hit in the explosion, 17-year-old Simon Chol Charles Thon Arob, died in Malakal General Hospital on Saturday (September 29). His funeral was held Monday (October 1) in Malakal.
The blast also wounded approximately 20 people, Rev. Gordon said. At least 10 young people were seriously injured, with four still in critical condition in Malakal as of yesterday.
A police source who visited the Malakal General Hospital yesterday put the number of injured at 12.
News of the attack hit national headlines on Monday (October 1) after the United Nations Mission in Sudan published a brief report on the bombing.
Responding to claims that the bomber was drunk, Khorfulus city officials have banned public consumption of alcohol.
“They told people over loudspeakers on Saturday and Sunday that they do not want to see any wine in public from Monday onward,” Rev. Gordon said.
The pastor told Compass that Christians in the city, who number approximately 30,000, did not feel threatened and were continuing to hold services.
But military officials were unable to identify the bomber, Rev. Gordon said, raising suspicions that the bombing was a deliberate attack on Christians. Despite wearing an SPLA uniform, army officials claimed that the attacker was not from a local battalion.
One Christian support organization reported that the dead bomber was an Arab soldier from Northern Sudan who had recently joined the southern-based SPLA. Open Doors said a military official identified only as SPLA Maj. Gen. Deng in Khorfulus believed the motive for the attack “was to intimidate Christians in the area,” the organization stated in a release yesterday.
According to Rev. Gordon, the government has posted plainclothes police around Khorfulus churches since the attack.
The pastor said that officials also arrested a second man who ran up to the church and yelled at the dead bomber moments after the explosion.
One of the northern-most areas under southern Sudanese jurisdiction, Malakal has remained relatively peaceful since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in January 2005.
The CPA brought an end to a 21-year civil war between northern Islamist Arabs and southern Christians, Muslims and animists. But in December 2006 violence erupted between southern SPLA forces and northern government of Sudan-backed militias in the area.
Over the past three years, the government of Sudan has failed to carry out democratization called for by the CPA, causing many to worry that the nation is headed back to civil war.
The CPA is “in danger of collapse due to government sabotage and international neglect,” International Crisis Group stated in a July 2007 report.