Muslims in Uganda Kill Christians' Livestock, Demolish Church

Muslims in Uganda Kill Christians' Livestock, Demolish Church

By Jeremy Reynalds, Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service (jeremyreynalds@gmail.com )

NALUGONDO, UGANDA (ANS-April 22, 2016) -- Muslims in a village in eastern Uganda last week killed Christians' pigs and tore down their church building.

According to a story by Morning Star News quoting area sources, a Muslim mob demolished the building of the 450-member Nalugondo Church of Uganda building at about midnight on April 12, shouting, “We cannot live together with neighbors who are infidels. We have to fight for the cause of Allah.”

Nalugondo village is near Bugade, Mayuge District, 93 miles east of Kampala.

Two days earlier, sources said, a group of Muslims slaughtered a church lay leader's pigs, a key source of income.

Singing praises to Allah and shouting, “Allah only is to be worshiped, and Muhammad is his prophet,” the group led by area Muslim Kambo Daudo killed Samuel Kijali's pigs at 4 p.m. on April 10, as Kijali's wife watched helplessly.

A few weeks before the slaughter, Morning Star News said Kijali had received text messages, saying that church members must stop raising pigs.

“Let this be known to your church members that pigs are extremely unholy and an abomination before Allah, very outrageous and shameful,” one text read. “They are haram (forbidden) and unlawful, as our holy Quran does prohibit them.”

Sources said Muslims also sent a text message to church member Kamaala Yokosani reading, “We are soon coming for the heads of your pigs,” before killing eight on April 5.

Yokosani was elected chairman of the Bugade zone in May 2015, and then later he began raising pigs.

A Christian witness said a Muslim neighbor of Yokosani, Kupoota Amisi, 60, went to his home with about 15 other Muslims.

“I saw Amisi with a group of people enter Kamaala's farm with knives, only to hear the following day that his pigs had been killed,” the witness said.

About 85 percent of the people in Uganda are Christian and 11 percent Muslim, with some eastern areas having large Muslim populations. However, Muslims now outnumber Christians in Nalugondo.

“It is quite difficult to resist these militant Muslims, because they have outnumbered us the Christians and are accusing us that we are defiling their faith,” Morning Star News reported Kijali said.

The church's 450 members are now without shelter as the rainy season descends, sources said. Musical instruments, more than 500 plastic chairs and other property were destroyed, a church leader said.

For more information visit www.morningstarnews.org.

Photo captions: 1) Workers sift through rubble of demolished church building in Nalugondo, Uganda. (Morning Star News). Christians in Easter Uganda protest the ongoing violence against them. 3) Jeremy and Elma Reynalds. 

About the writer: Jeremy Reynalds is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service, a freelance writer and also the founder and CEO of Joy Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter, www.joyjunction.org. He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in intercultural education from Biola University in Los Angeles. His newest book is "From Destitute to Ph.D." Additional details on "From Destitute to Ph.D." are available at www.myhomelessjourney.com. Reynalds lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife, Elma. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jeremyreynalds@gmail.com .

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