A pastor in eastern Uganda was brutally assaulted during a funeral sermon on Sunday, July 21. Pastor Davidson Okirori, 39, was speaking at the funeral of Vanisha Namukasa, a church member who had died in a hospital after an accident.
Okirori told Morning Star News that he was using the Bible and the Koran to preach about the resurrection of Jesus Christ when he was attacked by a group of Muslims.
“When I started mentioning verses from all these books,” he said, “I heard a young man shouting, ‘You kafir [infidel], stop misleading us — if you came to bury your people, bury them, but don’t use the Koran without getting ablution. This is blasphemy to our Allah.'”
Some Muslims shouted, “Away with him!” while others took the microphone from him and started tearing off pages of the Bible and Christian literature that he and other Christians had brought. The Muslims began throwing stones at him, the pastor said.
“They were throwing stones where I was standing, and one hit my head and I fell down,” Okirori told Morning Star News. “A Muslim man hit me with an object on my mouth, and from there I do not know what happened again. I found myself in Mulago Hospital with blood all over my body and my clothes.”
Christians outnumbering the Muslims at the funeral managed to restrain the assailants, who seized the Koran and Hadiths and took them to their nearby mosque, chanting the jihadist slogan, “Allahu Akbar [God is greater], we have won, we have won,” sources said.
Okirori was still recovering from wounds to his head, back, and arms on Tuesday, July 23. He said he was in need of prayer and medical assistance.
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% of Uganda’s population, with high concentrations in eastern areas of the country.
