Five Christians were drowned to death after they tried to share Jesus with Muslims while traveling in a boat over Uganda’s Lake Kyoga.
The Muslims in the boat considered what they proclaimed about Jesus to be blasphemy and after the Christians refused to recant and pledge their souls to Allah, they were all pushed out of the boat and murdered.
Here’s more via Morning Star:
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.
Morning Star News has obtained photos of the bodies of the five victims: Ankunda, 44; Peter Agaba, 28; Juliet Ashaba, 39; Johnson Karungi, 27; and Julius Lweere, 52.
Police have contacted officials in Nakasongola District and leaders of the sending church of the Christians, a church source in Aduku said.
Along with Bashir, two other suspects were identified as Jamil Budde and Juma of Nakasongola.
The attack was the latest of many instances of persecution of Christians in Uganda that Morning Star News has documented.
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.
It’s unfortunate that this is so common place and I suspect, because of that, the story won’t draw much interest. It’s the sad reality that we live in.
However for these five Christians are now marytrs and are being celebrated in Heaven as those who were willing to sacrifice their lives for Jesus instead of choosing to betray Him. I don’t thnk it gets any better than that in Heaven.
Saint Ignatius of Antioch, who was thrown to the lions in the colesium in the late first century/early second century, knew that giving his life for Jesus was the ultimate gift he could give Him. So he went to his death without plea or fight, never begging for mercy as the lions were about to eat him alive. These five Christians are now party of the great legacy of marytrs like Saint Ignatius of Antioch.