♦ This week’s news in brief ♦

A compact weekly digest of Dabanga Sudan's highlights of the news from Darfur and Sudan

♦  Five church leaders detained in Sudan capital

October 24 – 2017 OMDURMAN Five leading members of the Sudanese Church of Christ (SCC) were detained after saying prayers at a church building in Omdurman on Sunday afternoon.

The priests were summoned after prayers in the church in El Sawra block 29 by the district police, and held on charges of disturbing the public order. SCC legal consultant Dimas Marajan told Radio Dabanga that they were released on bail at midnight.

“On Sunday morning, when the priests and worshippers went to the church in the El Sawra district block 29 for the mass, they found the church doors locked,” the lawyer recounted. “The church guard informed them that an unidentified group of men closed the church at night. Not much later, a large force of policemen appeared. They told the people in front of the church that the Sudanese Ministry of Endowments decided to appoint a new church administration that will supervise anyone who wants to pray at the churches of the SCC.

“The worshippers rejected the decision saying the Ministry of Endowments has no right to intervene in internal church matters. SCC administration members are to be chosen by the church only,” Marajan said. “The people then tore the locks, entered the church, and began their prayers. After the mass, the police of the district immediately summoned the five priests and detained them.”

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♦  Minister to declare Sudan 'watery diarrhoea' free

October 20 – 2017 EL FASHER The Sudanese Minister of Health, Bahar Idris Abugarda, announced that Sudan will soon be “clear of acute watery diarrhoea”.

During a visit to North Darfur, Abugarda reported that the state has not witnessed any new cases of the diarrhoeal disease “for a month”. Since August last year, a wave of cholera, by the Sudanese government referred to as acute watery diarrhoea hit most parts of the country. “All cases that have recently been recorded in the country until today concern seven suspected cases; which are confirming the trend to declare the country free of the disease,” the Minister said.

The total number of reported cases of 'acute watery diarrhoea' across 18 states of Sudan has reached over 35,000 people – including 800 related deaths since August 2016 – according to the latest update from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Sudanese Ministry of Health this week.

These numbers conflict with what Sudanese doctors of the National Epidemiological Corporation reported in early July that nearly 24,000 Sudanese have been infected and 940 cholera patients have died since the outbreak of the infectious disease.

Sudan’s first cases of cholera were recorded in Blue Nile state in August last year. Since then, the disease spread in eastern Sudan, and later to the Northern State and central Sudan’s El Gezira. In April, sources in White Nile state reported a rapid spread of cholera. The disease then spread to North Kordofan and Darfur, and fully hit Khartoum in May.

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