Disappointed when an expected TV broadcast of school lessons on Christianity was omitted from the government-owned Television Station Khartoum International Channel this week, Christian parents suspected Islamist elements within the transitional government were influencing Khartoum State Ministry of Education planning, Morning Star News reported.

The only Christian woman appointed to the council that oversees transition to civilian government in Sudan, Raja Nicola Eissa Abdel-Masih, told a group of Sudanese church leaders in an online meeting on Tuesday (June 16) that council members were working to resolve the issue.

“I have been in communication with the undersecretary in the Ministry of Education in regards to the removal of Christian Religion from the time-table of the subjects for the Basic School Certificate for the year 2020,” Abdel-Masih told the church leaders.

A Coptic Christian who long served as a judge in Sudan’s Ministry of Justice, Abdel-Masih was one of six civilians appointed to the 11-member Sovereignty Council last August. Christians who have suffered under the regime of Omar al-Bashir, deposed in April 2019, have hoped that she and others in the new government can counter an entrenched Islamist mindset.

Rev. Yahia Abdelrahim Nalu of the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC) said the larger issue is that Christian students obliged to study Islamic Religion as a school subject are often forced to convert to Islam.

“Unfortunately, this is what is happening – most Christian students sit for Islamic Religion for the sake of obtaining the certificate, but they end up victims of Islamization,” Nalu told Morning Star News.

“The situation is worse in remote areas where there are no churches or Christian schools to teach Christianity and students are forced to take Islamic Religion”, he said.