Christians in Uganda were thrown off a boat and drowned

Christians were forcibly thrown off a boat in Uganda, where they perished.

According to reports, on August 10, 2022, Muslim radicals threw five Christian employees from a boat into Lake Kyoga in central Uganda, killing them instantly. This was reported in NAIROBI, Kenya, on September 9, 2022, by Morning Star News.

A Christian survivor of the attack informed Morning Star News that the evangelists from the End Time Word Ministry church were on their way to the Aduku region to build a church aboard a commercial transport boat from the Nakasongola District to the Apac District.

Amos Kyakulaga, a deacon of a church in Namutumba and one of the guides, reported that the five missionaries on board had begun preaching the gospel to a group of ten Muslims dressed in traditional Islamic garb.

Kyakulaga told Morning Star News, “On our trip, Tonny Ankunda started preaching to the passengers on the boat, which culminated in a large fight between Muslims and the missionaries on the sonship of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The man claimed that a Muslim named Bashir began threatening the Christians, stating, “If you continue maintaining that Jesus is the Son of God, then Allah will murder all of you.”

As the evangelists continued to proclaim Jesus as the Son of God using scriptural evidence, Bashir reportedly warned them, “We are giving you one more minute to halt your blasphemy and to convert by professing the shahada (Islamic creed), or else your lives are at jeopardy.”

Kyakulaga claimed that when the five missionaries refused to forsake Christ, the Muslims took them by force and threw them overboard. Despite the lake’s shallow depth (only around 4 to 5.7 m), all five Christians perished when they strayed 200 m from shore.

Kyakulaga claims that all ten of the Muslims on board agreed that the Christians should be slain and that neither the Muslim passengers nor the Christian pilot tried to stop them.

When the Muslims first saw him, they wondered if he was one of the missionaries, but when he explained that he was not with the church-planting group, they left him alone. As soon as the boat arrived, he rode a motorbike to the Aduku church that had welcomed them, where an elder coordinated the efforts of local authorities and a fishing crew to recover the dead from the water.

Photos of the remains of the five victims, Ankunda, 44, Peter Agaba, 28, Juliet Ashaba, 39, Johnson Karungi, 27, and Julius Lweere, 52, have been obtained by Morning Star News.

According to a church source in Aduku, police have informed authorities in Nakasongola District and the sending church of the Christians.

Jamil Budde and Juma of Nakasongola were also recognized as suspects, in addition to Bashir.

The assault was the most recent example of Morning Star News’s extensive coverage of persecution of Christians in Uganda.

The constitution and other laws of Uganda protect citizens’ rights to practice their religion freely, including the ability to evangelize and convert. A majority of Uganda’s Muslims live in the country’s eastern regions, making up little more than 12% of the total population.