This month, a Muslim in eastern Uganda severely beat his wife and two children and destroyed a church building because of his faith in Christ, officials said.
Kulsum Namrond and her two children, ages 12 and 9, were hospitalized for three days with injuries sustained in the beating by Soitha Zubairi, 44, in Muguti village, Budaka district, according to her 41-year-old mother.
Namrondo and her children visited Fit for Jesus Evangelical Church on October 12, after church elder Patrick O’Mara and his wife visited their home several times over a three-month period. When the service was over, she received a phone call from her husband.
“My husband started arguing and insulting me, saying that I was disgracing our family and misleading our children into a religion that is against Islam,” Namrondo told Morning Star News by phone. “I was scared to put my children’s lives and my own life at risk.”
She shared her concerns with the church’s senior pastor, Charles Quitinho, who arranged for her a place to stay.
At around 5pm, Zubairi arrived at the gate of the church grounds and asked the warden if he had seen the mother and her two children attending the service. The gatekeeper said he had no right to ask questions and that he needed to speak to church administrators, who were absent at the time.
Observers said Zubairi became agitated and left, and a gatekeeper saw him enter a nearby Muslim home. Around 7 p.m., Zubairi called his wife again.
“When I saw his phone, I knew he wanted to know where we were, so I decided not to answer the phone,” Namrondo said. “Then he wrote a message saying he knew where we were staying. I didn’t take it seriously. I thought he was just trying to scare us.”
Namrondo told Morning Star News that when he told Pastor Kitinho about the call that night, he was advised to stay inside and not go outside until the church provided him with a safe place to stay.
The next day, October 13, around 5 p.m., when the children went outside, they noticed their father approaching him with a cane, so they hurried inside. Zubairi entered the house and asked Namrondo about the whereabouts of the owner of the house. One of the children, whose name is withheld for safety reasons, said she told him she was visiting children at boarding school.
“Then he got very violent and pulled our mother out of the house and started beating her and yelling, ‘You are disobeying and condemning the religion of Allah, you should die,'” the child told Morning Star News.
Namrondo said the children screamed for help and tried to rescue their mother, but Zubairi turned his anger on his son.
“My husband hit my son several times with a walking stick, and soon he collapsed screaming in severe pain and broke his right arm,” she told Morning Star News. “While my son was on the ground, my husband started hitting me and my daughter. Thankfully, neighbors arrived and my husband ran away.”
Namulondo and her children were then rushed to a hospital in Mbale, 12 kilometers away, where they were treated for three days. She suffered a bruise on her left hand and swollen left leg, and her daughter suffered a bruise near her right knee. They were discharged from the hospital on October 16th.
While they were still hospitalized, Zubairi gathered a mob of Muslims and destroyed a church building on October 15, she said.
Zubairi was reported missing, but was said to have been found in Kampala town on October 22.
Church leaders reported the incident at the Muguti police station.
The attack was the latest of many instances of persecution of Christians in Uganda documented by Morning Star News.
Uganda’s constitution and other laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to propagate one’s faith and convert from one faith to another. Muslims make up only 12% of Uganda’s population and are concentrated in the eastern region of the country.
