releases: https://tomgarrett.house.gov/media/in-the-news/sudanese-refugees-freed-us-congressman-find-new-life-us
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://tomgarrett.house.gov/media/in-the-news/sudanese-refugees-freed-us-congressman-find-new-life-us | Sudanese Refugees Freed by US Congressman Find New Life in US | 2017-11-27 | 2017 | 2017-11 | Republican | House | VA | Thomas Garrett | G000580 | tomgarrett.house.gov | legacy | Six weeks after arriving in the United States, Hassan Abduraheem takes a seat in the back pew of Tar Wallet Baptist Church. Tucked into the woods along a country road in rural Virginia, the church holds about 50 worshippers. On this cold November Sunday, Abduraheem and his family of eight noticeably increase the congregation's size. They do their best to follow the unfamiliar English of the old Baptist hymns, which are very familiar to their new neighbors. And they share the hymns from their former home — Sudan. Standing in a single line in front of the altar, the family fills the church with Arabic song. "Unbelievable," Abduraheem says repeatedly, as he describes his journey from a crowded prison cell in Sudan to a fixed-up house on the farm of his new pastor. "Unbelievable" seems like the only word that could describe the turn his life took, thanks to a Facebook post and a U.S. congressman. Abduraheem's work as a former pastor is not outlawed in his native Sudan, but Christians are a minority in a diverse country that has suffered through multiple civil wars. According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, there has been "an escalation in the Sudanese government's persecution of Christians,” since the 2011 secession of South Sudan. Abduraheem says his work was spreading the gospel; the Sudanese government accused him of espionage, and he was detained along with two other pastors in December 2015. "The first day when they took us to the prison, they beat us,” he says softly ... READ MORE | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |