A widow and her children, who fled their home in eastern Uganda after her husband was killed in 2015, returned this year only narrowly to escape another attack that has burned down her reconstructed home.
Muslim extremists set fire to the home of Kanifa Namulondo in Kaliro District in May. She is the widow of Siriman Kintu, a convert from Islam beheaded in 2015 for his faith. Namulondo and her five children had returned to Kaliro after friends had helped reconstruct the house they left more than five years ago. The family had only moved back in April.
There was an unusually early call for Muslim morning prayers at 3:30 a.m. on 2 May, said Namulondo, who left Islam for Christianity in 2015.
‘At around 4 o’clock [in the morning] I heard people talking near the door’, she said. ‘I overheard one say: “The husband betrayed our religion. We should do away with the entire family”.’
She woke up her children and escaped out the back of the house, broke into a neighbour’s home and hid in the bathroom. Soon her house was in flames, waking neighbours whose cries caused the arsonists to flee.
At about 6a.m. Namulondo and her children were discovered locked inside the home of Musana Kyakwita, who had operated a garage workshop with her late husband. They are now living in great fear and must relocate again, this time far away from Kaliro.
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% of Uganda’s population, with high concentrations in eastern areas of the country.
Dr David Landrum, Open Doors UK Director of Advocacy and Media said: ‘Conversion to Christianity has led to many deaths and physical attacks in the eastern part of Uganda where most Muslims are concentrated. Among Christians, converts report the most, and most intense, persecution cases. Christians in eastern Uganda get little or no protection. We call on the Ugandan Government to intervene seriously to defend Christians facing Islamic violence.’
