Christian Persecution Mar/Apr 2016
EASTERN UGANDA—A 32-year-old Pentecostal pastor was hacked to death recently and his body thrown in the river less than a week after members of a Bible study were poisoned in another area of eastern Uganda.
Pastor Bongo Martin and other church members resisted a Muslim effort to take over their land in Nansololo village. Muslims erected a fence with poles and barbed wire that encompassed land of the Pentecostal Church Ministry (PCM), a church elder told Morning Star News. Pastor Martin went to the site.
“Why are you encroaching on the church’s land and removing the boundary marks?” he asked the imam.
“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,” the imam answered.
A Muslim then drew his sword and struck the pastor’s neck, church members said. Pastor Martin fell down bleeding, as the man continued to strike him, decapitate him, and throw his body into the river.
Pastor Martin leaves behind a wife and two children. A PCM church elder who witnessed the atrocity said, “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.”
The PCM bought the land from Kamya Ephraim, a 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.
Five days earlier in another part of eastern Uganda, five underground Christians in the predominantly Muslim village of Kachomo were poisoned after a Bible study, area sources said.
The Bible study took place at the home of Hajii Suleiman Sajjabi, a convert from Islam who had begun the study with eight family members who had become Christians under his influence.
Sajjabi is in a coma after someone put a pesticide into the group’s food. Four of his relatives have died.
Police are searching for the suspect, Isa Sajjabi, 32, one of Sajjabi’s sons. Isa had opposed leaving Islam for Christianity and had distanced himself from his converted relatives.
Survivors said his mother found Isa in the kitchen during the Bible study. After the study ended and the group began to eat, he disappeared. Group members began to feel ill shortly thereafter. Hospital tests revealed the victims had ingested the pesticide Malathion.
One month before the incident, word reached the mosque that Hajii Suleiman Sajjabi was distributing Bibles to Muslims. The local imam wrote a letter of rebuke to Sajjabi, warning him to stop witnessing to Muslims.
Sajjabi stopped attending the mosque, and he and his family became fearful. Shortly afterward, he started distributing clothes and food, gave out eight Bibles, and started the Bible studies in his home.
A Christian said, “Sajjabi was using the service outreach approach to reach members of the mosque” to win some to the Christian faith.
by Morning Star News
(MorningStarNews.org)
