Sudan

Sudan, once the largest country in Africa, has long suffered from severe ethnic strife and been plagued by internal conflict. The country gained independence from British-Egyptian rule in 1956. Wars between the predominantly Christian and animist south and the predominantly Muslim north eventually culminated in South Sudan’s independence in 2011.¹

Sudan’s long civil wars have given the country a poor human rights record and have led to large numbers of internal displacements within the country. The 2003-2020 war in the Darfur region saw the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups fighting government forces. It was followed by a government campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur’s non-Arab communities resulting in the deaths of an estimated 300,000 people.²

At the time of writing, the country is caught up in another civil war between rival factions resulting in a devastating humanitarian crisis, and severe political and economic instability. As of early January 2026, the Sudan portal of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’s (UNHCR) reported 11.75 million people forcibly displaced since the conflict began in 2023 – including over seven million internally displaced.³ United Nations (UN) agencies estimate around 34 million are in need of humanitarian assistance while more than 21 million people are acutely food insecure.⁴

Sudan’s population is predominantly Sunni Muslim. The Pew Research Center estimates that Muslims account for roughly 90% of the population and Christians make up around 5%. Followers of indigenous religions account for roughly 3%, with a small remainder made up of other faiths and religiously unaffiliated individuals.⁵ There is no specific indication of the number of non-religious people living in the country. Sudan is a member of the League of Arab States (LAS), as well as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Constitution and government

Political situation

President Omar al-Bashir, who came to power through a military coup d’état in 1989, was ousted in 2019 following months of civilian protests against his rule.⁶ He was convicted of corruption charges by a Sudanese court and is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to stand trial for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes over Sudan’s military campaign in Darfur. In September 2024, due to his health deterioration, al-Bashir was transferred to a medical facility in northern Sudan after being held in a military facility since the war broke out in April 2023.⁷

After the overthrow of former president al-Bashir, Sudan embarked on a political transition aimed at dismantling some of the hardline Islamist policies through democratic civilian rule.⁸ As part of a power-sharing deal between the ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the opposition Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) coalition, an 11-member sovereign council composed of six civilians and five military officers was appointed to govern the country for a three-year transition period (until 2022).⁹ However, in October 2021, the commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, seized power, dissolving the transitional government and arresting civilian leaders. The move led to nationwide protests and international condemnation.¹⁰ In April 2023, fighting erupted between the SAF and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), notorious for their role in the ethnic cleansing of non-Arab civilians in Darfur. The fighting between the two factions resulted in mass killing and reports of ethnic-based atrocities.¹¹

As of January 2026, Sudan remains embroiled in civil war, with mass displacement continuing and famine conditions reported in multiple locations. The SAF, under Gen. al-Burhan, has retaken key positions in Khartoum (including the Presidential Palace in March 2025) and fierce fighting continues despite the resumption of peace talks in January 2026 and calls for a nationwide humanitarian truce.¹²

Progress stalled

After al-Bashir was ousted, Abdalla Hamdok was sworn in as prime minister in August 2019 and became the head of the transitional government. During this period, the transitional authorities began dismantling key elements of the former Islamist legal framework. A raft of legal amendments were passed in July 2020 in order to bring the country’s laws in line with a 2019 interim constitutional declaration. These included amendments to abolish the crime of apostasy;¹³ to end the death penalty and flogging for same-sex relationships (but keeping a possible sentence of prison terms ranging from five years to life);¹⁴ to permit children to travel with their mothers without permission from male members of their family; to ban female genital mutilation (FGM); to repeal some laws restricting women’s dress; and to allow consumption of alcohol for non-Muslims.¹⁵

These reforms rested on the interim constitutional declaration signed by the TMC and the FFC (the “2019 Declaration”).¹⁶ The 2019 Declaration contains provisions protecting the right to freedom of religion or belief (framed in the text as operating “in accordance with the requirements of the law and public order”). It repeals the Transitional Constitution of 2005 and the constitutions of all Sudanese provinces.¹⁷ However, laws promulgated pursuant to the 2005 Constitution will remain in effect until such time as they are abolished or new laws are passed repealing them.

The reform agenda proved politically polarizing. While many in Sudan celebrated the changes, loyalists of al-Bashir and Sudan’s Islamic parties, including the Popular Congress Party (PCP), denounced them. The famous Sudanese cleric Abdul Hai Youssef called for “jihad” against Prime Minister Hamdok’s government, stating that “bringing down this government, which has legalized apostasy and other wrongdoings, is a duty for any Muslim.”¹⁸ In March 2020, an unsuccessful assassination attempt was carried out against Prime Minister Hamdok, who was widely seen to be leading the reforms.¹⁹ In September 2020, the transitional government signed a declaration adopting the principle of secularism, stating that:

“[f]or Sudan to become a democratic country where the rights of all citizens are enshrined, the constitution should be based on the principle of ‘separation of religion and state,’ in the absence of which the right to self-determination must be respected.”²⁰

Progress stalled following the October 2021 coup d’état led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, which placed Sudan under military control and limited civilian governance. Although Prime Minister Hamdok was reinstated in November of the same year, he resigned in January 2022.²¹ A Framework Political Agreement drafted at the end of 2022 reiterated a pledge to protect freedom of religion and belief, but subsequent instability – and then war – left many reforms and commitments unimplemented.²²

In May 2025, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan appointed Kamil Idris as prime minister, the first since the civil war began. Prime Minister Idris was tasked with forming a new transitional government.²³ International observers, including the UN Secretary-General, expressed hope that the appointment of a civilian prime minister could be a first step toward peace.²⁴

In February 2025, the RSF and allied political and armed groups signed a charter for the creation of a parallel government which called for a secular, decentralized Sudan and a ban on religious political parties. In late July 2025, the parallel government was announced, raising fears of further partition within the country.²⁵

Registration of religious groups

Formal recognition of religious groups is primarily overseen by the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MRA). The MRA also plays a wider administrative role in religious affairs, including oversight of Islamic institutions and engagement with churches and other communities.²⁶

A religious group’s ability to run humanitarian assistance programs often depends on registration with the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC). Registration can determine access to benefits such as tax exemptions and ownership of land.²⁷

Education and children’s rights

All schools in Sudan are required to provide Islamic education classes to Muslim students as part of the national curriculum, and attendance is mandatory for those students. Non-Muslim students are formally exempt from Islamic education classes.²⁸ However, in practice, implementation varies and there have been reports that some Christian students have been required to attend Islamic classes. As all students must receive religious education, students of minority religions are typically educated outside the formal school setting, and there are no secular alternatives that allow students to opt out of religious instruction altogether. Christian instruction in public schools should be available when there are at least 15 Christian students in a class,²⁹ and the government had planned to increase the number of Christian teachers before the proposal was disrupted by the 2021 coup d’état and the ensuing conflict.³⁰

In January 2020, the Ministry of Education had also announced that pre-school students would no longer be required to learn the Quran in school.³¹ The transitional government also suspended a law that required Christian schools to conduct classes on Sundays.³²

Given the current political instability in the country, it is unclear how far the letter of the law is applied in practice.

Child Marriage

Sudan’s 1991 Muslim Personal Status Act³³ permits marriage for girls as young as ten, and child marriage remains widespread.³⁴ It is estimated that a third of the female population between 20-24 is married before the age of 18.³⁵ A report published by UNICEF in 2017, found that many religious leaders believe that child marriage is part of Islamic principles and are therefore resistant to change. However, the report also points to examples of receptive religious leaders in the country, including a religious scholar who calculated that the Prophet Mohammed married his wife when she was 17 or 18 years old, and not nine years old as is frequently claimed.³⁶

Family, community and society

The Criminal Code³⁷ states that the law shall be based on Sharia sources and include hudud, qisas, and diyah principles (regarding punishment, restitution, and compensation for specific serious crimes). Many laws concerning personal and family matters adopted during the al-Bashir administration remain largely in effect and continue to be based on Sharia law. Interpretation of Sharia-based law draws on various schools of jurisprudence (madhahib). A Panel of Islamic Scholars and Preachers (the Fiqh Council) has been responsible for explaining and interpreting the laws and indicating which approaches may be applied in practice. Since the ousting of al-Bashir, the scope of the Fiqh Council’s mandate has remained uncertain.³⁸

Discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities

Under al-Bashir’s government, Christians in Sudan were persecuted and churches were forcibly shut down or destroyed, often under the pretext that they lacked proper building permits.³⁹ In November 2025, two Christian churches in the city of Port Sudan were graffitied with Islamic phrases written in red paint. They were among the oldest churches in the country and, despite being located opposite a police station and the perpetrators being caught on CCTV, the police took no action.⁴⁰

In September 2019, Prime Minister Hamdok stated that his administration would address “religious discrimination,” and the Minister of Religion invited Jews and Christians who had left the country to return. However, religious discrimination remains prevalent in Sudan, as many laws concerning personal and family affairs adopted during al-Bashir’s rule largely remain in effect. This can result in different legal outcomes depending on the perpetrator’s religion. For example, while Muslim men are allowed to marry Christian or Jewish women, Muslim women generally may not marry a non-Muslim man. Differences have also been reported in how certain offences are enforced – for instance, alcohol-related penalties have not always been applied uniformly across religious groups. The Criminal Code sets out that Muslims that possess or consume alcohol are subject to lashes as punishment, while non-Muslims are typically not. The law also provides a discretionary mechanism for early release if an inmate memorizes the Quran during imprisonment.⁴¹

In December 2019, the transitional government declared Christmas a national holiday, and court proceedings were initiated to return land confiscated by the previous regime back to Christian communities.⁴²

Despite the 2020 agreements, and even before war broke out in 2023, incidents of ethnic violence across the country were rife. Hundreds of people died and hundreds of thousands were displaced during conflicts between tribes in the Blue Nile, Kordofan, and Darfur areas. Government responses sometimes worsened the humanitarian situation, with arbitrary detentions and abductions by security forces.⁴³

According to Freedom House:

“Since the start of the 2023 war, the RSF and allied militias have carried out brutal attacks on non-Arab populations in Darfur, particularly the Massalit, in an attempt to expel those groups from certain areas, such as the city of El-Geneina. Reports indicated that more than 10,000 people had been killed by late 2023, while hundreds of thousands fled the region. Sexual violence against women and girls in Darfur was pervasive. The RSF also reportedly burned neighborhoods, health clinics, and humanitarian aid offices, preventing survivors of the attacks from accessing help. Violence against civilians based on their ethnic origin intensified in October, when the RSF started gaining more territory in the region, and continued through year’s end.”⁴⁴

Since the current civil war began, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has documented a deterioration in conditions for religious minorities, including reports of arbitrary detention and incidents involving attacks on places of worship.⁴⁵ The impact of the war on places of worship has not been confined to one religious group. The UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan found that there have been a series of attacks on religious sites, including the bombing of churches and mosques. In September 2025, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) carried out a drone strike on the Al-Safiya Mosque in north Darfur killing at least 75 worshippers during morning prayers.⁴⁶

There is little information available on the experience of atheists in Sudan, however some accounts describe severe social stigma and threats of violent attack.⁴⁷ This would be consistent with violence faced by other minority belief groups detailed above.

Women’s Rights

Women were fundamental to the protests that contributed to the 2019 ousting of former President al-Bashir whose regime had severely suppressed women’s rights.⁴⁸ The current conflict has, however, halted the progress that was starting to be seen in a country where leaders have long used religious laws to exert control over women.⁴⁹ In what is an extremely patriarchal society, women are again the victims of further waves of violence and brutality including extremely high levels of sexual violence and exploitation.⁵⁰

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

Despite Sudan’s legal ban on FGM in 2020, women and girls remain highly vulnerable to the practice, and even more so in the context of conflict, displacement and humanitarian crisis.⁵¹

According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), almost 89% of women in Sudan have undergone FGM, although support for the practice is slowly starting to decline. Reasons given by women to justify the continuation of the practice were, “cleanliness (purity), social acceptance, better marriage prospects, chastity, and sexual attraction to male partners”.⁵²

Religious leaders have shown a varied response to initiatives seeking to abolish the practice. A report from the Women’s Studies International Forum publication argues that gaining support from religious leaders on this issue has depended on the composition of their power base and their inclusion in or exclusion from the process.⁵³

LGBTI+ Rights

Same-sex sexual activity is illegal in Sudan and currently carries a penalty of five years imprisonment, which can extend to life imprisonment in the case of a third conviction. The possibility of capital or corporal punishment was removed when the Penal Code was amended in 2020.⁵⁴

LGBTI+ individuals face serious threats of harassment or attack in a highly conservative and religious society that remains overwhelmingly opposed to LGBTI+ rights.⁵⁵

Freedom of expression, advocacy of humanist values

Media freedoms

Media freedoms were heavily restricted during al-Bashir’s rule, characterized by institutionalized censorship, mass arrests of journalists, and raids on newspapers and printing presses. While there were improvements under the new 2019 government, Reporters Without Borders reported that, while the government had committed to freedom of expression, censorship was exercised more discreetly. Most political newspapers continue to be affiliated with supporters of the former regime.⁵⁶

A number of laws have been used to target and silence critics and independent media. The Press and Publications Act 2009⁵⁷ and the National Security Act 2010⁵⁸ remain in effect, while the draconian Cybercrime Act 2007⁵⁹ has been replaced with the vaguely worded Law on Combating Cybercrimes (LCC) 2018,⁶⁰ which rights groups describe as vague and repressive.⁶¹ In January 2026, Sudanese activist Ayman Hariri was handed a fine of two million Sudanese pounds and sentenced to six months in prison under Sudan’s cybercrimes law. He had criticized the security services’ use of a building on social media that had previously been used to provide emergency care and shelter those displaced by the conflict.⁶² Reporters Without Borders found that the 2021 military coup d’état reinstated censorship and, since the start of the 2023 conflict, attacks on journalists have surged, forcing many to flee abroad.⁶³

Today, state-controlled media dominates Sudan’s information landscape, typically serving as mouthpieces for the government. Since the 2021 coup d’état, repression has intensified with journalist arrests, internet shutdowns, and military propaganda. The civil war has further crippled the media, forcing many outlets to close.⁶⁴ Communications – and particularly internet access – has frequently been affected during the conflict, with disruptions impacting the ability of emergency services to operate and humanitarian organizations to provide relief. Interviews with human rights defenders by Amnesty International revealed that they were “unable to carry out meaningful documentation of rights violations” due to internet blackouts.⁶⁵

Sudan’s multicultural society faces growing intolerance, with rising ethnic tensions and media scrutiny. Religious groups influence journalism, while social media – once a platform for free expression – now fuels racism and misogyny, often targeting women and minorities. Journalists in Sudan face growing threats of arrest and torture from militias, the army, and the RSF. Women journalists are the most targeted.⁶⁶

“Apostasy” and “blasphemy”

During al-Bashir’s reign there were many high-profile cases of apostasy.⁶⁷ In July 2020, apostasy was decriminalized, and replaced by a new provision prohibiting the labeling of any group of individuals as “infidels.”⁶⁸

In July 2022, four Christian men in Darfur were accused of “apostasy” following a church raid, even though the law against converting from Islam had been abolished.⁶⁹ After reportedly being subjected to police harassment and inhumane and degrading treatment, as well as a legal ordeal, the General Prosecutor in Central Darfur dismissed the case in September of the same year.⁷⁰

“Blasphemy” remains a criminal offense; however, the provision has been amended. Prior to the amendment, Article 125 of the Penal Code stated:

“Whoever, by any means, publicly abuses or insults any of the religions, rites, or beliefs, or sanctities, or seeks to excite feelings of contempt and disrespect against the believers thereof, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or with a fine, or with whipping, which may not exceed forty lashes.”⁷¹

The new law abolishes the penalty of whipping, and the period of imprisonment is limited to six months.⁷² In November 2024, reports indicated that many Christians were still serving long jail terms related to blasphemy charges, despite the 2020 legal changes.⁷³

Freedom of Assembly

After 2019, the transitional government eased restrictions on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) making it possible for them to register. In light of the ongoing conflict and subsequent obstacles to registration faced by many NGOs, the Humanitarian Aid Commission issued a decree that extended the validity of expired registrations to March 2024.⁷⁴ Reports indicate that there has been an increasing level of attacks on human rights groups and women human rights defenders in particular since the start of the current hostilities.⁷⁵

Anti-government protests, which began in December 2018, were violently suppressed by state security forces, who attacked protesters wherever they congregated, including outside mosques, hospitals, and schools. Serious violations reported during the protests include the use of torture and other inhuman, degrading treatment; sexual and gender-based violence; and attempts by the state to limit information about events on the ground by shutting down the internet and communications networks.⁷⁶ While the transitional government committed to holding those responsible for the violence to account, it failed to release the findings from its investigation and bring charges against officials. Human Rights Watch found that at least 120 people had been killed and more than 900 injured between 3-18 June 2019, while Sudanese officials estimated that at least 64 women were raped and others sexually assaulted.⁷⁷

In 2022, security forces violently suppressed protests, killing and injuring protesters, and blocking roads and bridges to prevent gatherings in key locations.⁷⁸ Throughout 2023, the Sudanese government, SAF, RSF, and allied militias were responsible for numerous extrajudicial killings. In February, security forces killed a 16-year-old protester with a police officer indicted for murder.⁷⁹

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