Sudanese ‘apostasy’ woman arrives in US

A Sudanese woman who refused to recant her Christian faith in the face of a death sentence has arrived in the United States where she was welcomed first by the mayor of Philadelphia and later, at her final stop, by cheering supporters in New Hampshire.

Meriam Ibrahim flew from Rome, where she had an audience with Pope Francis, to Philadelphia with her husband and two children, where Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter greeted her during a brief stop en route to New Hampshire where her husband has family in Manchester, and where they will make their new home.

Daniel Wani, her husband, briefly thanked New Hampshire's Sudanese community on his family's behalf and said he appreciated the outpouring of support.

Ibrahim, 27, smiled and waved to the crowd of about three dozen supporters, but she did not speak publicly.

The Rev. William Devlin, a New York City pastor who had helped the family, said Ibrahim expressed some sadness when he talked to her Wednesday.

Ibrahim had been sentenced to death over charges of apostasy, the abandonment of a religion. Her father was Muslim, and her mother was an Orthodox Christian.

She married Wani, a Christian from southern Sudan, in 2011. 

Sudan initially blocked Ibrahim from leaving the country despite its highest court overturning her death sentence in June. The family took refuge at the U.S. embassy in Khartoum.

Wani, who previously lived in New Hampshire, had been granted U.S. citizenship when he fled to the country as a child to escape civil war, but he later returned and was a citizen of South Sudan.

Manchester, with 110,000 people, is northern New England's largest city and has been a magnet for immigrants and refugees for decades. There are about 500 Sudanese living in the city just north of the Massachusetts state line.

Al Jazeera and wire services