The disturbing treatment of Hajara Namwase 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 previous ChristianPersecution.com coverage of Christian persecution in Uganda, see here.
“Muslim Husband Sets Wife on Fire for Accepting Christ,” Morning Star News, November 8, 2023:
NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) – A woman in eastern Uganda has been hospitalized with serious burns after her Muslim husband discovered she had converted to Christianity and set her on fire, area sources said.
Hajara Namwase, a 32-year-old mother of three children in Kenkebu village, Budaka town, is still receiving hospital treatment for third-degree burns after her husband, 42-year-old Musa Kalele, on Oct. 17 threw gasoline and a lighted match on her, a friend of the victim told Morning Star News.
After accepting Christ on May 3 while her husband was away on business in South Sudan, Namwase regularly attended a small group fellowship in Budaka with the friend who had introduced her to the gospel and other Christians. She returned home from the cell group meeting on Oct. 17 to find her husband had returned from a trip to South Sudan.
“I got scared upon seeing him, because I had some gospel tracts and a small New Testament Bible which I could not hide,” Namwase told her friend, whose identity is withheld for security reasons.
Upon seeing the Bible and other Christian literature, Kalele became furious, left the room and returned with a container of gas, she said.
“He took some bedsheets, covered them around my body and then removed me out of the house,” Namwase told her friend. “He forced me to lie down. He took the petrol, then poured it on me and thereafter took a matchbox, lit it, and the fire began burning me up.”
Her daughter alerted neighbors who rescued her and took her to Mbale Regional Referral Hospital. Namwase’s sister later arrived to help her get admitted to the hospital, and on Oct. 24 she was transferred to a hospital in Kampala for more specialized treatment.
Her husband has fled to South Sudan, a relative of Namwase told Morning Star News.
Namwase said she is worried about where she will stay after her release, as all her relatives are Muslims, and what will become of her children, ages 4, 6 and 9, who have come under the care of their paternal grandmother….
