Sudan apostasy woman given US embassy refuge

A Sudanese woman facing death threats after her apostasy death sentence was overturned has been given refuge at the US embassy in Khartoum, the woman’s husband said.

Daniel Wani said on Friday that Mariam Ibrahim and his two children were doing well at the heavily guarded facility on the outskirts of the Sudanese capital. 

Ibrahim had spent several weeks on death row after being found guilty of abandoning Islam and marrying Wani, a Christian. She was later released, but then charged with forgery while leaving the country on a South Sudan travel document. She sought US protection after being released on bail on Thursday.

“Really, it’s good,” Wani told the AFP news agency on Friday, adding that embassy staff had been “very helpful and very nice.”

Wani said they had sought the embassy’s protection because of death threats against his wife.

The US state department said Ibrahim and her family were “in a safe location” and Sudan’s government “has assured us of the family’s continued safety”.

Ibrahim was born to a Muslim father and an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian mother.

Her father abandoned the family when Ibrahim was five, leaving her to be raised by her mother, according to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Khartoum, which said she joined the Catholic church shortly before she married.

Conversion is outlawed on pain of death in Sudan.