The Somali Christian mother has been locked up in a room with her young daughter since August 6 after her Muslim relatives moved her after an earlier escape, sources said.
“My child has become very thin due to a lack of sufficient food,” 28-year-old Fatuma Hassan told her husband on a phone call in the town of Afgooye in the lower Chebel region of Somalia. “My children don’t want to be in a family who says, ‘I’ll abandon this bastard born of a heathen – we want you to come back, but not a child who has no right to live.’ I’ve always been crying for my baby and hope that one day I will escape this terrible ordeal to achieve my peace and freedom. ”
Hassan comes from the royal family, but since accepting Christ, she currently lives in danger in inhumane circumstances as she is nursing the injuries to her parents who are pursuing her, sources said.
“My family and relatives have vowed not to let me see the good sunlight until I abandon my Christian faith and return to Islam,” Hassan told Morningstar News. “But I pray that God’s intervention will run away and rejoin my husband. Plus, I need a prayer from a Christian.”
While she placed her faith in Christ and lived in her parents’ house, she listened to songs of Christian worship on her cell phone, and although she had no idea of the lyrics, she had locked herself inside her bedroom. The song touched her heart and she had the vision of identifying herself as Issa (Jesus). “I know you’re thirsty.
“Since then I began to experience abundant peace and followed him,” Hassan said.
Her father overheard her singing several times.
“I have discovered that you are hearing the ears about bad religions, and I am warning you to stop listening to Christian songs related to Issa,” he told her, Hassan said.
The family took a phone call from her and locked her in the room. One day in March 2024, she said she found an opportunity to escape. She fled to the town of Barado in the central Shovel area. There, he met and married a Christian, who was unknown for security reasons.
She remained hidden from her family for over a year. In June, Hassan slid her place to relatives and again carried the 1 year old baby on July 30th, she ran to the same relatives at the market. The relatives provided information to other Muslim relatives.
Six traveled to Hassan’s house on August 6th, arriving at 6pm after relatives monitored her and learned that she had a Christian husband
Hassan told her husband to lock her in the bedroom, and her Muslim relatives quietly entered the house. They began asking her questions about her absence for more than a year and her husband’s whereabouts, she said. Hassan did not answer.
One relative slapped her, and another jumped outside and then went back with a stick to slap her.
“My wife started screaming,” her husband told Morning Star News. “I escaped through the rear window. Three days later, my wife called me and said she was back with her people but was locked up in a dark room.”
Her family and relatives continue to be exposed to all sorts of insults by her, sources said.
Somalia ranks second on the 2025 watch list of Christian support groups Opendoas in 50 countries where becoming a Christian is the most difficult. According to the US State Department, its constitution establishes Islam as a national religion and prohibits the reproduction of other religions. It is also required that the law comply with the principles of Sharia (Islamic law) without exception to the application of non-Muslims.
The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law, according to the mainstream schools of Islamic law. Al-Shabaab, a Somali Islamic extremist group, is allied with al-Qaeda and is accommodating education.
