Husband receives threatening text messages from kidnappers
By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
BULO MARER, SOMALIA
(ANS) -- Islamic
extremists suspected to be rebel al-Shabab militants have kidnapped a
Christian mother of two young children in Somalia and threatened her
husband because of their faith, her husband said.
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Somalia`s
Islamic al-Shabab spokesman Sheik Muktar Robow Abu Mansur (C) addresses
a news conference where he vowed to step up attacks against government
soldiers and foreign troops
in Mogadishu |
"I just heard screaming from my wife and the children as I approached my house," Osman said.
That night, his wife was able to send him a text message saying he should flee the area, he said.
"Please leave immediately
because of what we believe," she said in the text. "They have abused me
sexually saying I am an infidel."
According to the East Africa
correspondent for the news service, Osman said he has received
anonymous, threatening text messages from the kidnappers from a withheld
number, including one reading, "Your wife has told us all about your
Christian involvement and soon we shall come for you too."
A leader of the underground
church in the undisclosed town to which Osman and his daughters, ages 3
and 5, have fled said Osman has not heard from his wife since her Aug. 5
text message.
"Our two young daughters are crying for their mother," Osman told the church leader.
The story went on to say
that a resident of the Bulo Marer area whose name is withheld confirmed
that Hussein was abducted but that local residents knew little else
about it.
"What little we knew about
Osman's family was that they were not very committed to attending the
mosque during Ramadan time," he said.
Somalis consider themselves Muslim by birth, and apostasy, or leaving Islam, is punishable by death.
"Al-Shabab, said to have
ties with Al Qaeda, reportedly has a base in Bulo Marer. The group has
vowed to rid Somalia of Christians, who meet secretly due to
persecution. Al Shabaab is battling the Somali government that replaced
the Transitional Federal Government a year ago, on Aug. 20, 2012," added
the East Africa Correspondent.
"On June 7 in Jamaame
District in southern Somalia, insurgents from the group shot 28-year-old
Hassan Hurshe to death after identifying him as a Christian, sources
said. Al Shabaab members brought Hurshe to a public place in the town of
Jilib and shot him in the head, they said."
The insurgents have lost
control of several areas of Somalia since Kenyan military forces helped
to dislodge them in the past year, but they are suspected in the
shooting death of a Christian pharmacist on the outskirts of Kismayo in
February. Two masked men killed Ahmed Ali Jimale, a 42-year-old father
of four, on Feb. 18 as he stood outside his house in Alanley village.
According to Morning Star News, these are some of the other attacks:
* On April 13, al-Shabab
rebels shot his widow, 42-year-old Fartun Omar, to death in Buulodbarde,
20 kilometers (12 miles) from Beledweyne, leaving their five children
orphaned.
* On March 23, al-Shabab
militants in Bulo Marer jailed and tortured a Christian, 25-year-old
Hassan Gulled, for converting from Islam, sources said.
* On Dec. 8, 2012 in
Beledweyne, 206 miles (332 kilometers) north of Mogadishu, gunmen killed
a Christian who had been receiving death threats for leaving Islam. Two
unidentified, masked men shot Mursal Isse Siad, 55, outside his home,
Muslim and Christian sources said. Siad and his wife, who converted to
Christianity in 2000, had moved to Beledweyne from Doolow eight months
before. The area was under government control and there was no
indication that the killers belonged to the al-Shabab rebels, but the
Islamic extremist insurgents were present in Buulodbarde, and Christians
believed a few al-Shabab rebels could have been hiding in Beledweyne.
* In the coastal city of
Barawa on Nov. 16, 2012, al-Shabab militants killed a Christian after
accusing him of being a spy and leaving Islam, Christian and Muslim
witnesses said. The extremists beheaded 25-year-old Farhan Haji Mose
after monitoring his movements for six months, sources said. Mose drew
suspicion when he returned to Barawa, in the Lower Shebelle Region, in
December 2011 after spending time in Kenya, according to underground
Christians in Somalia.
"Kenya's population is
nearly 83 percent Christian, according to Operation World, while
Somalia's is close to 100 percent Muslim," concluded the story.
See all ASSIST News articles at www.assistnews.net
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