Posted: 12/26/2015 at 2:38pm
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Pastor Hacked to Death, Bible Study Members Poisoned in Eastern
Uganda
By
Dan Wooding, Founder of the ASSIST News Service
NANSOLOLO
VILLAGE, EASTERN UGANDA (ANS -- December 26, 2015) -- A pastor in
eastern Uganda was hacked to death on Wednesday (Dec. 23) as he and other church
members resisted an effort by Muslims to take over their land, area church
leaders said.
In
Nansololo village near Mazuba, in Namudumba District, Muslims erected a boundary
fence with poles and barbed wire that included land of the Pentecostal Church
Ministry (PCM), a church elder told Morning Star News (http://morningstarnews.org),
a church member who lives close to the church building telephoned pastor Bongo
Martin, who immediately came to the site.
“Why
are you encroaching on the church’s land and removing the boundary marks?”
Pastor Martin asked. A church member said the imam answered, “We have told you
many times that we do not want the church to be located near our mosque. Your
church has been taking our members to your church.”
According
to the East Africa Correspondent of the news service, a Muslim named Abdulhakha
Mugen then drew his sword and struck the pastor’s neck, church members said.
Pastor Martin fell down bleeding, and after more sword blows and decapitation,
he died. He was 32.
“When
I saw such a brutal killing of my pastor, fear gripped me and, fearing for my
life, I went to report the incident to Nabitende area police,” a church elder
said.
Muslims
threw Pastor Martin’s body into a nearby river at 10 a.m., sources said. He is
survived by a widow and two children.
“When
I arrived at the scene, the pastor’s body had just been thrown into the river,
and many people came to witness the sad incident,” the church leader said.
“Tension remains high in the area.”
The
PCM church has documents showing it bought the disputed land from Kamya Ephraim
for 3.4 million Uganda shillings (US$1,000), the church leader said.
“The
church building extends to a nearby river that borders mosque land, and on
several occasions we have been threatened that our church building should be
removed from its present location,” the church leader said.
The
church had intended to establish an orphanage in the center of Nansololo, but
plans are now on hold, said Morning Star News.
Christians
Poisoned to Death
In
another area of eastern Uganda, five underground Christians in a predominantly
Muslim village, including a pregnant mother, have died from a pesticide put into
their food after a Bible study, area sources said.
The
Bible study took place on Dec. 18, 2015, in Kachomo village, Kachomo Sub-County,
Budaka District at the home of Hajii Suleiman Sajjabi, a convert from Islam who
had begun the study with eight family members who had come to faith in Christ
under his influence.
Morning
Star News said that Sajjabi is in a coma after someone put a pesticide into the
food the group ate after the study, and four of his relatives have died,
according to area sources: Katooko Aisha Sajjabi, 22, died at 4 a.m. on Dec. 19;
Mwanje Husain Sajjabi, 24, died at 5 a.m. that day; Eric Ali Sajjabi, 29, later
died; and Musa Namusongi Sajjabi, 26, later died. A fifth person, neighbor
Mariam Kurumu, a pregnant mother, died at 5 a.m. on Dec. 19 at Mbale Regional
Hospital.
Budaka
central police and Kaderuna police are searching for one of Sajjabi’s sons,
32-year-old Isa Sajjabi, who had opposed leaving Islam for Christianity and had
distanced himself from his converted relatives. He was at the home at the time
of the Bible study but did not participate in it.
Survivors
said that when his mother left the study to get water for one of the group
members during the study, she found Isa Sajjabi in the kitchen. After the study
ended at 7:30 p.m. and the group began to eat, Isa Sajjabi and a Muslim friend
disappeared. Group members began to feel ill after half an hour.
“A
doctor at Mbale Regional Hospital said a postmortem test showed a substance
known as Malathion, a low-toxicity pesticide, in those who had died. Though
low-level toxic, Malathion when ingested quickly metabolizes into highly toxic
Tomalaoxon,” said Morning Star News.
Late
last month word reached the Kaderuna mosque that Hajji Suleiman Sajjabi was
distributing Bibles to Muslims. The local imam wrote a letter of rebuke to
Sajjabi.
“Please
be informed that we have known of your deception, and we cannot take this
lightly,” the imam wrote. “You should stop trying to change the Muslims to
Christianity in the name of providing support to our members of the Muslim ummah
[community].”
Sajjabi
stopped going to the mosque after receiving the letter, and he and his family
became fearful. Sajjabi had begun the study after distributing clothes and food
in Kaderuna in October of this year, and then inviting some close friends to his
home for a luncheon. At that time, he gave out eight Bibles, a local Christian
leader said, and the Bible study meetings began in his house.
The
local Christian leader, whose name is withheld for security reasons, said
Sajjabi was previously a secret disciple who had helped the Muslim community
through several outreaches to the poor.
“For
about two years, Hajji had managed to win eight members of his household, except
one son who became resistant to the gospel,” the ministry leader said. “Hajji
Sajjabi was using the service outreach approach to reach members of the mosque,
which he used to attend with the intention of winning some to the Christian
faith, but he tried to remain secret in the Christian faith.”
The
Christian leader said he fears also for his life.
Morning
Star News went on to say that the incidents were the latest in a series of
attacks on Christians in eastern Uganda. Islamic extremists in eastern Uganda on
Dec. 8, 2015, set a deadly trap for a Christian policeman who had left Islam,
and the next day other hardline Muslims kidnapped three children from another
convert in a nearby village. More than 20 Muslim extremists in the Komodo area
of Kadama Sub-County, Kibuku District, killed officer Ismail Kuloba at about 4
p.m. after he responded to an urgent call to intervene in a supposed land
dispute between warring parties, an area Christian told Morning Star News.
Kuloba was 43.
One
of the assailants, Mudangha Kasimu, said Morning Star News, threw a stone that
hit Kuloba in the forehead. Kasimu then shot him twice in the head, and he died
as other Muslims were shouting, ‘Allah Akbar[God is greater],’” sources
said.
About
12 miles east in Kabuna, near Budaka in Kaderuna District, a group of Muslim men
from Palissa on Dec. 9 kidnapped three children of Madengho Badir, a Christian
convert from Islam, sources said. Badir, 42, arrived at his home in Kabuna
Sub-County, Kabuna parish, at 10 p.m. to find 5-year-old Nabukwasi Shakira,
7-year-old Gessa Amuza and 10-year-old Wagti Musitafa missing.
An
area source said a 14-year-old boy from Kabuna, Karami Hassan, was with Badir’s
three children when they were abducted near their home. The boy said a group of
Muslims from Palissa were looking for Badir, and the boy led them to Badir’s
children.
Outside of
Kabeshai, near Palissa, a Christian father of five who supported 10 children
whose families had disowned them for leaving Islam was killed on Dec. 2, 2015.
One of three men who attacked Patrick Ojangole reproached him for failing to
heed a warning to cease his Christian activities before the Christian was
killed, said a witness who was with Ojangole and escaped. Ojangole was 43.
The
news service stated that on Nov. 12, 2015, the father of a young Muslim woman in
east Uganda tried to beat her to death after she became a Christian, but
community leaders intervened and limited him to disowning her, sources said.
Kibida Muyemba learned that his 21-year-old daughter, Namusisi Birye, had put
her faith in Christ at an evangelistic campaign held that day in Nandere
village, Kadama Sub-County, Kibuku District, 41 kilometers (25 miles) west of
Mbale, church leaders told Morning Star News. Birye and a man in the traditional
dress of an imam confessed openly to receiving Christ, they said, and angry
Muslims cut the event short.
On
Oct. 19, 2015, Muslims in Kalampete village, Kibuku District who were angry at a
Christian for leaving Islam killed his wife, a month after his brother was
killed for the same reason.
Mamwikomba
Mwanika, mother of three adult children and five others ranging in age from 17
to 9, died enroute to a hospital after Muslims unknown to her dragged her from
her home at about 9 p.m. and assaulted her, survivors said.
Her
husband’s brother, Samson Nfunyeku, was killed in the village on Sept. 23 after
flaring tempers cut short a religious debate he’d had with Islamic scholars.
But
the violence didn’t end there. In Nsinze village, Namutumba District, a Muslim
beat and left for dead his wife and 18-year-old son on Aug. 11, 2015, after
learning they had converted to Christianity, area sources said. Issa Kasoono
beat and strangled his wife, Jafalan Kadondi, but she survived, said a source
who requested anonymity. He said other relatives joined Kasoono in beating her
and their two sons, Ibrahim Kasoono, 18, and Ismael Feruza, 16, though the
younger son managed to escape with only bruises on his arm.
The
wife of a former sheikh was poisoned to death on June 17 after she and her
husband put their faith in Christ in Nabuli village, Kibuku District. Namumbeiza
Swabura was the mother of 11 children, including a 5-month-old baby.
In
Kiryolo, Kaderuna Sub-County, Budaka District on March 28, five Muslims
gang-raped the 17-year-old daughter of a pastor because the church leader
ignored their warnings that he stop worship services, she said.
“About
85 percent of the people in Uganda are Christian and 11 percent Muslim, with
some eastern areas having large Muslim populations. The country’s constitution
and other laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to propagate
one’s faith and convert from one faith to another,” concluded the Morning Star
News story.
Note
from Dan Wooding: In the late 1970s, myself and Ray Barnett traveled to Uganda
to research and later write a book for Zondervan publishing called “Uganda
Holocaust” about the terrible eight years of misrule by Idi Amin, a Muslim,
during which around 300,000 Christians were slaughtered by Amin and his thugs. I
am saddened that the killing of Christians continues in Eastern Uganda.
Photo
captions: 1) A crowd forms where the body of Pastor Martin Bongo was thrown into
a river in eastern Uganda. (Morning Star News) 2) Relatives of Hajii Suleiman
Sajjabi await word on poisoned Christians at Mbale Regional Hospital. (Morning
Star News), 3) Uganda Holocaust cover. 4) Dan Wooding and Ray Barnett at Karuma
Falls, Uganda, where thousands of bodies of the victims of Id Amin’s terror
machines were dumped to be eaten by the waiting crocodiles below.
About
the writer: Dan Wooding, 75, is an award-winning author, broadcaster and
journalist who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, and is now
living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married
for 52 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who
all live in the UK. He is the author of some 45 books and has two TV programs
and one radio show in Southern California, and has reported widely for ANS from
all over Africa, including Uganda.
**
You may republish this or any of our ANS stories with attribution to the ASSIST
News Service (www.assistnews.net)
Edited by News Room on 12/26/2015 at 2:46pm
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