Villagers gather where the body of James Mukenye Habiibu was found on Dec. 17, 2024 in Kibuku District, Uganda. (Morning Star News)

NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) – Islamic extremists on Dec. 16 killed a Christian father of three children who had fled his home in eastern Uganda due to death threats from Muslim relatives, sources said.

James Mukenye Habiibu, who along with his wife converted to Christianity in January 2022, was found in a pool of blood the morning of Dec. 17 in Kagumu Sub-County, Kibuku District, Uganda. He was 29.

Soon after they put their faith in Christ, Habiibu’s family received death threats from relatives, said his wife, whose name is withheld for security reasons.

“The whole family threatened to kill us if we continued with the Christian faith,” she said, adding that they fled to another district that night, where they began worshipping at a local church.

They returned to their home district with their children in October, renting a house in Bulangira town. Relatives and other Muslims discovered their return in one month, and they began to receive threatening messages from Habiibu’s relatives, she said.

“We know where you are, and soon we are coming there and you will not escape the wrath of Allah,” read a text message from a Muslim extremist identified only as Swaibu in Kagumu Sub-County, Kibuku District, she said. “You left here and disappeared from us for three years thinking that Allah was in a sleep. Has Allah not brought back you for back justice? Soon we are going to behead you and get a big reward from Allah, and this time you’re not going to escape from us.”

On Dec. 16 at about 6 p.m., Habiibu left his house on a motorcycle for a gospel outreach with another evangelist from a Presbyterian church in Buseta.

“At about 7:30 p.m. I received a call from my husband telling me of people who have been following/tracking him for about half an hour and requesting prayers,” she said. “Since then, there was no communication from him.”

At 8 a.m. the next morning, she received a phone call from someone using her husband’s phone stating that the owner of the phone had been killed, and that the body was lying in the swamp at Kakutu, she said.

“A neighbor escorted me, and when we arrived at the scene of the incident, I found my husband lying in a pool of blood,” she said. “We also found several people at the scene.”

An area resident who requested his name be withheld said that as he returned from Kakutu trading center to his home village, he saw and heard from a distance people speaking in Arabic as they stabbed someone who was crying and calling out, “Jesus! Jesus! I am dying, please help me, please help me, help me!”

“When I got closer I was able to identify some few men because there was a moon light,” he told Morning Star News. “Among these men were Jafari and Swaibu, both from Kagumu.”

Habiibu’s wife said she called police who quickly responded, that she has filed a report and investigations are underway.

Officers from the Kibuku Central Police Station along with policemen from Lyama are searching for a number of Muslim extremists for the murder, she said.

Habiibu leaves behind three children, ages 2, 4 and 7.

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.

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