Uganda: Radical Islamists severely beat up wife and daughter of evangelist they murdered last year
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Radical Islamists who murdered Christian evangelist Simon Olinga in eastern Uganda last year have now beaten up his widow and daughter so harshly the girl remains unable to walk, Morning Star News (MSN) reports. Believers in Uganda have come under increasing attack from Islamic extremists although Muslims are a small minority and Christianity is legal.
Evangelist Olinga of Kasasya village in Pallisa District was murdered by Islamist neighbors in February last year after he led six Muslims to Christ, MSN reports. The same men who killed Olinga also threatened his wife Jenifer Nakirya and 16-year old daughter Oliva Apio, telling them to leave the village, MSN reports.
“After the death of my husband, [the Islamists] continued threatening that I should live elsewhere or else face their wrath and death, but I refused to leave,” Nakirya told MSN. “We used to house six Muslim converts from Pallisa and surrounding villages, and we kept them for three months and later sent them to Bible colleges in Kampala and Mbale. The conversion of the six Muslims to Christianity disturbed and angered the Muslims; this really ignited the fire of our persecution,” Nakira said.
On December 30, the Islamists went to Nakira’s home and beat her and Oliva unconscious, MSN reports. Church members found them and took them to the hospital. When a reporter from MSN visited them on January 7, Nakira was still in great pain and Oliva could not walk from a spine injury.
“The assault was the latest of many instances of persecution of Christians in Uganda that Morning Star News has documented,” MSN said in its report.
“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 no more than 12 percent of Uganda’s population, with high concentrations in eastern areas of the country,” MSN noted.
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