Persecution in Somalia

Workers killed for refusing to renounce their faith
MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (BosNewsLife)– Christians in Somalia faced a tense day Thursday, August 13, amid fresh reports that fighters of the country’s main Islamic insurgent group al-Shabab beheaded four Christian aid workers for refusing to renounce their faith in Christ.

International Christian Concern (ICC), a major advocacy group investigating reports of religious persecution, told BosNewsLife that al-Shabab members killed Fatima Sultan, Ali Ma’ow, Sheik Mohammed Abdi and Maaddey Diil after kidnapping them on July 27 in the coastal town of Merca, some 90 kilometers (56 miles) from the capital Mogadishu.

“The Islamists kidnapped and eventually beheaded the Christians after they refused to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ,” ICC said. The four Christians had reportedly been working for a local non-governmental organization that helps orphans in southern Somalia.

ICC said that on August 4, an unidentified junior al-Shabab militant notified families of the victims that the four Christians had been beheaded for apostasy. He allegedly described the Christians as promoters of “fitna,” a Muslim term for religious discord.

The militant, who called himself “Seiful Islam” (“the Sword of Islam”), told the families that the bodies will not be given to them “as Somalia does not have cemeteries for infidels,” ICC quoted the statement as saying. “All the four apostates were given an opportunity to return to Islam to be released but they all declined the generous offer,” a witness of the beheading allegedly said.

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The reported killings of Christian aid workers came shortly after al-Shabab declared three United Nations agencies working with the country’s U.N.-backed transitional government as “enemies of Islam” and said their operations in Somalia have been shut down.

Al-Shabab also claimed responsibility for other attacks against the Christian minority in Somalia, which has been plagued by widespread lawlessness and anarchy. Earlier last month, al-Shabab beheaded seven people in the southwestern town of Baidoa after accusing them of converting to Christianity and spying for the transitional federal government of Somalia, Christians said.

In 2008, fighters of the group killed more than a half dozen Somali Christians, ICC added.