NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — Although the All Saints Anglican Cathedral in Khartoum suffered huge damage in the two-year battle for the Sudanese capital, the country’s archbishop is relieved the structure was never bombed.
Speaking on Tuesday (April 1), days after the Sudanese Armed Forces, the national army, had recaptured the city from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Ezekiel Kondo, the archbishop of the Episcopal (Anglican) Church of Sudan, told RNS he had received information about the state of the cathedral and the damage it had sustained.
“The damage is huge. Archbishop’s residence, dean’s house, and offices are all destroyed and looted. Praise God the building is not bombed,” Kondo, 68, told RNS from Port Sudan, in eastern Sudan, where he had been forced to flee two years earlier. “It will cost millions of dollars to repair the church.”
According to the archbishop, Christians are yet to return to the cathedral because the army has not declared the area safe.
“There may be land mines left behind by the paramilitary. Basic services such as water and electricity have not been restored,” said Kondo.
On March 26, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces, announced that his forces had taken the city back from Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and the Rapid Su …