Convert from Islam in Sudan loses wife, children

Many have fled their homes due to violence in Sudan.
(Photo: Assist News) 

A year ago, Mohammed Khidir Khalil was glad his family had obtained refugee status in Egypt after fleeing Islamic hostilities in Sudan. The 38-year-old Christian was also heartened that his formerly unbelieving wife was attending church with him.

However, Compass Direct News reports that today the convert from Islam is back in Sudan fighting to recover his family after his in-laws compelled his wife to claim she was Muslim and divorce him. A Sudanese court automatically granted her custody of their two sons and forbade him to see them, he said. He fears that if he persists in his legal battle, he faces the threat of being accused of “apostasy,” or leaving Islam.

It was last August that his Muslim mother-in-law visited them in Egypt. “Without my knowledge, she took my wife and children back to Sudan,” Khalil said.

The couple had fled Sudan just before the South Sudan vote for independence on January 9, 2011, after threats from the couples’ Muslim families and others intensified, Khalil said.

On Christmas Day, Khalil decided to return to an undisclosed town in Sudan to search for them. He was shocked to discover that his wife, Manal Hassan, had filed for divorce on grounds that she was a Muslim and he a Christian.

Please pray for Khalil.

• Pray that he will be reunited with his wife and children. 
• Pray that, as sufferings overflow, his comfort in Christ will be more than enough for him (2 Corinthians 1:5).

To read the full report from Compass Direct, click here. For more information on Sudan’s persecuted Church, visit our Sudan Country Report.