On Friday (July 18), Muslim relatives of Christian converts in eastern Uganda drove him into his locked-up home and killed him, sources said.
Since accepting Christ in April, as was done by Kassaja Abdul Maliki of Karilo village, the Karilo district was locked up in his home during a mosque service on Friday, praying and studying the Bible when Muslim parents exploded and stabbed him. He was 37 years old.
The unmarried Maliki had begun receiving questions from her family about her absence from the mosque’s prayer earlier this month. He replied that he was trained as a welding machine.
His nie was identified only as Shamina and said on Friday (July 18th) he heard his relatives pray loudly inside his house, “I will petition Issa in the name of Issa (Jesus) to save the family.”
“I then warned the family about Maliki’s strange prayer methods. He quickly went to his house,” said Shamina, daughter of Maliki’s brother Rubega Karim. “They discovered that the house was locked up as Maliki was still praying. They pushed the door very hard and went inside, realizing that Maliki was still praying in the Bible placed by him.”
They picked up the Bible and tore it into pieces, she said.
“When we were inside the house, other members of the family arrived and were so angry that they began screaming the Islamic slogan “Allah Akbar (God is bigger)” and started hitting Maliki with kicks and blows,” Shamina told Morningstar News. “At a moment, members of the family arrived with knives and sticks led by their father, Karim and Sempa Arafat.”
She said as Maliki cried out for help, Karim “pushed him into the chest with a sharp knife.”
The neighbor is too late to revive him.
“We tried to save Maliki, but it was too late to save his life and he died on his way to the nearby clinic,” one of our neighbors said.
According to the church pastor, Maliki placed her faith in Christ during the evangelical events of April 9-12 in the town of Carillo on April 12th.
“After the campaign, I took him to my house and made him a student for a week with Christian teachings, then he returned to his house,” the pastor, named for security purposes, told Morningstar News.
Maliki attended meetings twice a month on Fridays, once a month and on Fridays, and hosted by the church.
“Since his conversion in April, Maliki has gained sufficient skills in welding, and as a church we had planned to start a small business in the town of Carillo for him,” the pastor said.
The attack was the latest in many examples of persecution of Christians in Ugandan that Star News documented that morning.
The Uganda constitution and other laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to spread faith and to transform from one faith to another. Muslims make up less than 12% of Uganda’s population, and the eastern part of the country has high concentration.
