The disturbing treatment of these five Christians illustrates yet again how conversion to Christianity is so often the occasion for persecution of Christians — both of the converts and of those who brought the converts the word of the Gospel.
Among the Christians of Uganda are around 35,000 Orthodox Christians. For news of the Orthodox Church in Uganda, see here.
For previous ChristianPersecution.com coverage of Christian persecution in Uganda, see here.
“Five Christians Thrown Off Boat and Drowned in Uganda,” Morning Star News, September 8, 2022:
NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) – Muslim extremists killed five Christian workers by throwing them off a boat into central Uganda’s Lake Kyoga on Aug. 10, sources said.
The evangelists from End Time Word Ministry church were traveling from Nakasongola District to Apac District on a commercial transport boat with plans to plant a church in the Aduku area, a Christian survivor of the attack told Morning Star News.
The survivor, Amos Kyakulaga, a deacon at a church in Namutumba who was acting as a guide, said the five evangelists began proclaiming Christ to a group of 10 Muslims in Islamic attire aboard the boat.
“On our way, Tonny Ankunda started preaching to the people on the boat, which resulted in a huge argument between Muslims and the missionaries concerning the Sonship of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Kyakulaga told Morning Star News.
He said one of the Muslims, identified only as Bashir, began threatening the Christians, saying, “If you continue insisting that Jesus is the Son of God, then Allah will kill all of you.”
Citing Scripture, the evangelists continued affirming the sonship of Christ and, according to Kyakulaga, Bashir told them, “We are giving you one last minute to stop your blasphemy and to convert by confessing the shahada (Islamic creed), or else your lives are at risk.”
When the five evangelists refused to renounce Christ, the Muslims seized them and pushed them off the boat one by one, Kyakulaga said. While the lake is only 4 to 5.7 meters deep, they were 200 meters from shore, and all five Christians drowned.
The 10 Muslims aboard were in agreement that the Christians should be killed, and neither they nor the boat’s pilot did anything to intervene, Kyakulaga said.
The Muslims asked him if he was one of the missionaries, sparing him when he said he was not part of the church-planting team, he said. When the boat docked, he took a motorcycle to the church in Aduku that had invited them, where an elder obtained help from local officials and a fishing group to find and remove the bodies from the lake….
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.
