Muslim relatives attack Christian, wife and children in Somalia

Muslim relatives of a convert from Islam in Somalia attacked a second time in Lower Juba Region on July 8, wounding him in the stomach, breaking his wife’s ankle and beating his children.

Mohammad Abdul had survived a May 5 knife attack by his Muslims relatives on the outskirts of Kismayo in southern Somalia’s Lower Juba Region, and his in-laws had taken his wife and five children away while he was receiving hospital treatment. Abdul put his faith in Christ in March.

Having recovered his family and relocated them to another area after the attack in May that left him with a deep cut on his head and a fractured hand, Abdul in the July 8 assault also suffered injuries that took away his ability to speak, his wife said.

Abdul, 40, found a rented house for his family on June 10 about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from his home, which the relatives had destroyed in the May 5 assault, and soon after his family relocated to the new home.

Toward the end of June, his in-laws began making threatening calls to his wife, she said.  

“I started receiving calls from my relatives that I should return back to my people before we get converted to a religion which is not approved in Islam – ‘Please come back home to avoid endangering yourself and the children,’” said his wife, whose name is withheld for security reasons.

Initially she did not heed the messages, believing the family’s location was far enough away and unknown to them, though one of her trusted relatives had helped her relocate, she said.

“As several frequent and threatening messages continued streaming in, I started getting fearful,” she told Morning Star News.

At about 8 p.m. on July 8, five of her relatives arrived and knocked on the door, which she opened, she said.

“My husband was then in the washroom,” she said. “Immediately they started asking the whereabouts of my husband.”

She remained silent, she said.

“One of my relatives went outside the sitting room and came back with sticks and started beating the children, who started crying loudly,” she said. “Another relative went outside and came with a blunt object and hit me on my left ankle. My husband gained courage and dashed out of the bedroom and came trying to save me, but he was easily overpowered and knifed at the stomach as another hit him all over his body.”

Many neighbors arrived thinking robbers were attacking them, and her relatives fled, she said.

“I thank God that this time round they did not mention their usual Islamic slogan of, ‘Allah Akbar [God is greater], which could have endangered our lives, because we are living in an Islamic region,” she said. “The neighbors found my husband in a pool of blood and took us to a nearby medical clinic.”

Hospital doctors put her broken ankle in a cast. Abdul is in stable conditional but has lost speech, she said.

“Please, we request financial support and prayers at this difficult time,” she said. “We are in a state of helplessness and hopelessness. We desperately need school fees and food. Also pray for our protection in this hostile and anti-Christian community.”

Somalia’s constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and prohibits the propagation of any other religion, according to the U.S. State Department. It also requires that laws comply with sharia (Islamic law) principles, with no exceptions in application for non-Muslims.

The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence. An Islamic extremist group in Somalia, Al Shabaab, is allied with Al Qaeda and adheres to the teaching.

Al Shabaab or Al Shabaab sympathizers also have killed several non-local people in northern Kenya since 2011, when Kenyan forces led an African coalition into Somalia against the rebels in response to terrorist attacks on tourists and others on Kenya’s coast.

Somalia is ranked 2nd on Christian support group Open Doors’ 2024 World Watch List of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.