Sudan’s security services expelled a South Sudanese senior catholic priest together with other expat religious personnel the same day the Sudanese president made his first official visit to Juba.
Santino Morokomomo Maurino, the secretary-general of the Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Khartoum, arrived today in Juba after being deported by the security services for undisclosed reasons.Fr Maurino told CRN that he was called to National Intelligence and Security Services or NISS headquarters where he was briefly detained and given three days to buy an air ticket and leave the country for no reason and without a chance to defend himself.
He said he was expelled together with two foreign religious brothers who were living at Catholic Language Institute-Khartoum or CLIK.
Their activities were under the surveillance of the secret services.
The two expat missionaries expelled together with Fr Maurino were Frenchman Michel Fleury and Egyptian Brother Hossam from the Brothers of the Christian Schools who were living at Clik.
Both were working with children in Khartoum.
Clik was founded for expat missionaries to learn Arabic but the school was closed.
Fr Maurino arrived at Juba International Airport Friday, ahead of President Omar Al Bashir of Sudan on his first official visit to South Sudan.
He questioned which kind of normalization of relations could be achieved between the two countries while citizens of South Sudan were expelled or mistreated in the Sudan.
Fr Santino said he did not trust that Khartoum would implement the Four Freedoms Agreement allowing South Sudanese to live, work, own property and engage in business in South Sudan.
He said Christians were in trouble in the Sudan.
Fr Santino denounced that Christians are being persecuted because the regime wants to islamize the country and eliminate the Christian presence.