A Muslim in Uganda stabbed his son to death with a long knife for converting to Christianity last month, sources said.
Hamba Ahammada, 62, of Butaleja District killed his 33-year-old son, Hamba Juma, with a long knife known locally as a panga on Jan. 28 in Iganga District along the Kaliro-Iganga road about five kilometers from Iganga town, said the slain man’s wife, Nangobi Mariati.
Hamba Juma was father to four children, ages 12, 10, 7 and 3.
“I and my late husband had gone to the swamp to plant rice, and coming back home we found my father-in-law at our home,” Mariati said.
They prepared lunch for him, and that evening they ate dinner with Hamba Juma’s father as well, she said.
“After supper, my father-in-law requested the panga from our son, aged 12, without us knowing,” Mariati said. “Shortly he called my husband, ‘Juma, Juma, Juma – come, come, come.’”
Hamba Juma rushed over, thinking his father had some problem.
“When he reached there, my father-in-law picked up the panga and started cutting my husband, and he disappeared,” Mariati said. “But it seems that it was a planned move, because immediately people tried to look for him and they couldn't see him.”
A neighbor told her that he previously saw a motorcycle rushing at high speed into town from the wilderness, she said.
“We suspect that maybe he was the one helping him to escape the scene of the crime,” Mariati said tearfully. “My husband screamed for help, we tried to make it to the hospital, but there he was pronounced dead.”
Mariati said her husband was killed because he and she had converted to Christianity from Islam.
“My father-in-law together with other family members have been insulting us, sending harsh words promising to kill all of us for leaving Islam,” she told Morning Star News.
At this writing police had not investigated.
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.
