A Muslim in eastern Uganda severely beat his wife and two children for converting to Christianity and demolished their church building (pictured) in Muguti village, Budaka District.
Soicha Zubairi (44) beat his wife Kulusumu Namulondo (41) and two children (12 and 9) so severely that they were hospitalised for three days. The children’s names are withheld for security reasons.
Kulusumu and her children visited Fit for Jesus Evangelical Church on 12 October after church elder Patrick Omala and his wife visited their home several times in the previous three months. When the service was over, she received a phone call from her husband.
“My husband started quarrelling and insulting me that I was becoming a disgrace to the family and misleading the children in joining a religion which is contrary to Islamic religion,” Kulusumu told Morning Star News by phone. “Fear came to me for risking the lives of my children and my own life.”
She told lead pastor Charles Kitinyo about her fears and he arranged a place for them to stay. At about 5 pm Zubairi arrived at the church premises and asked the gatekeeper if he had seen a mother and two children attending the service. The gatekeeper said he was not the right to person to ask, rather the church administrator, who was away. Zubairi left, upset, and the gatekeeper saw him enter the house of a local Muslim.
At about 7 pm Zubairi called his wife again. “When I saw his phone call, I decided not to pick up the phone because I knew that he wanted to know of our whereabouts,” she said. “He then wrote a message that he knew where we were staying. I did not take it seriously. I thought he was just trying to scare us.”
Kulusumu said she told Pastor Kitinyo about the calls and he advised her to stay in the house and not go outdoors until the church could arrange a safe place for them to stay.
At about 5 pm next day the children were outside when they saw their father approaching with a walking stick, and they quickly went back into the house. Zubairi entered and asked Kulusumu where the homeowner was; she replied that she was away visiting her children at a boarding school.
One of Kulusumu’s children told Morning Star News, “He then became very wild and pulled our mother outside the house and started beating her and shouting in a loud voice saying, ‘You are disobeying and denouncing the religion of Allah, and you ought to die.’”
When the children called for help and tried to rescue their mother, Zubairi turned his anger on his son. Kulusumu told Morning Star News, “My husband hit my son with the walking stick several times, and he soon fell down screaming and wailing in great pain – he fractured the right arm. While my son was on the ground, my husband started beating up me and my daughter. Thank God, neighbours arrived, and my husband fled away.”
Kulusumu and the children were rushed to a hospital in Mbale, 12 km away, where they were treated for three days. She suffered bruises on her left hand and a swollen left leg, while her daughter had bruises near her right knee. They were discharged on 16 October.
On 15 October, while his family was still in hospital, Zubairi gathered a Muslim mob and demolished the church building. He has since gone missing, though he was reportedly spotted in Kampala on 22 October. Church leaders reported the incident at the police station in Muguti.
The attack was the latest in a long sequence of incidents of persecution of Christians in Uganda documented by Morning Star News. Uganda is over 80% Christian and its population in general enjoys religious freedom, which is provided for in the constitution, but in areas with high concentrations of Muslims – especially in the east of the country – there has been a huge increase in violent attacks on Christians in recent years. Converts from Islam are especially at risk of attack by family or community members and some have been killed. Angry mobs have carried out some attacks on church buildings and have injured or killed pastors and evangelists.
(Morning Star News, Church in Chains Global Guide)
Photo: Morning Star News