Muslim government officials attend a Christmas service at Khartoum Bahri Evangelical Church on 25 December 2019

The attendance of Muslim government officials at a Christmas celebration in Sudan shows how far religious freedom has progressed since the new regime took office.

After making Christmas a public holiday for the first time in eight years, the government showed its commitment to religious tolerance by the presence of the Minister of Religious Affairs, Nasr al-Din Mufreh, and other officials at the Christmas Day service of Khartoum Bahri Evangelical Church.

The minister also visited other Khartoum churches to send a strong signal to the formerly persecuted Christians of the country that their suffering was at an end.

Mufreh said: “I tender my apology for the oppression and the harm enforced on you physically by [the prior government’s] bulldozing your church buildings, arresting and falsely imprisoning your church leaders and raiding your property.” However, the properties stolen from Christians by the previous government have not yet been returned to them.