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PEOPLE GROUP PROFILE

The Murle of Ethiopia

The Murle of Ethiopia, numbering approximately 2,400 people, are Engaged yet Unreached. They are an eastern Sudanic ethnolinguistic group indigenous to the Jonglei state of South Sudan. They are an Diaspora people in the Nilotic people cluster of the Sub-Saharan African Peoples affinity bloc. Their primary language is Murle and their primary religion is Animism.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Murle

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-Saharan African Peoples
Country: Ethiopia
People Cluster: Nilotic
Primary Language(s): Murle (mur)
Primary Religion(s): Animism
Population: 2,400
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Engaged yet Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity
People Group ID: PG011622
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Pray for the Murle of Ethiopia

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Animism
Religious Affiliation: Ethnoreligion

75%
%

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Murle
Language Family: Surmic

85%
%

Media Resources in Murle:

Films:

No language code (ROL) found for this post.

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

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Bible Resources in Murle:

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Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Murle bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

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Explore Lostness and Next Steps

Unengaged and Unreached

Strategic Priority Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached (SPI: 1), which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations among which there are no known efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.
Lostness Priority Index (LPI): Frontier Unreached People Group, (LPI: 0), < 0.1% Evangelical.
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity (GSEC: 1), this people group is less than 2% evangelical, some evangelical resources are available, but there has been no active church planting among them within the past two years

Next steps for the Murle:
Begin signifcant prayer and fasting for this group
Send cross-cultural teams to discover and research this people group
Begin gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group

SPI: Unreached yet Engaged

The Murle are Engaged yet Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations but there are sustained efforts at establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Next steps for the Murle:
Continue prayer and fasting for this group
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Begin training up local leaders to lead and develop strategies to reach their own people

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Murle are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Next steps for the Murle:
Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Murle of Ethiopia

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.
readColossians 3:5-6

Pray for God to have mercy and give those who don't yet know Him the gift of Jesus and His salvation for all who call upon His name.

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
readRomans 10:14

Pray that the gospel will advance among those who don’t know the good news of salvation in Jesus so that they might believe and trust in Jesus.

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
read2 Corinthians 9:6

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will remember the principle of sowing and reaping, and be generous in their giving and serving, knowing that they will reap a generous harvest.

And the King will answer them, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."
readMatthew 25:40

Ask God to raise up and send believers who will serve "the least of these" with compassion and energy because they know that in serving those in need, they are serving Christ.

Murele Across Countries (ROP3 - 106921) reported in the following countries:

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Definitions page.

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