Muslim extremists are suspected of murdering tourists and assaulting Christians.
An evangelist was beaten unconscious in Kampala.
In the Kawaala area of Kampala, six Muslim extremists shouting, “Kafir [Infidel]!” and the jihadist slogan “Allah Akbar [God is greater]” attacked 27-year-old Robert Settimba as he was walking home from street preaching at about 7 p.m., said a friend, whose identity is withheld.
He sought help from a nearby church, and he and other Christians returned to the site, where they found Settimba unconscious and took him to a nearby hospital, he said.
Settimba is well-known to Christians as a street preacher to Muslims in Kampala, Kisenyi, Wandegeya, and Kawaala. His injuries included severe chest pain, bruising on his thigh, left hand, and shoulder, and swelling and inflammation on his left ankle.
Settimba said he regained consciousness in the hospital.
“When I came to my senses, I found myself in the hospital with Christians around my bed,” he said. “They supported me and gave me 50,000 Uganda shillings [US$13] for medical treatment.”
Settimba said he was yet to decide whether it would be too dangerous to file a police report on the assault.
Killing in Kasese
In western Uganda’s massive Queen Elizabeth National Park, a Ugandan Christian tour guide, Eric Alyai, and a foreign married couple were shot to death on Tuesday (Oct. 17) by suspected Islamic terrorists of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in Kasese District, sources said.
Alyai, 40, British tourist David Barlow, and his South African wife, 51-year-old Celia Barlow, were killed at 6:30 p.m. along the park’s Katwe Road between L. Nyamununka and Kabatooro, according to security agencies.
Alyai was known to take tourists to Christian-owned hotels in Kasese, which helped generate income for the local church, and sources said he also took Christian tourists to churches in Kasese.
Authorities suspected ADF terrorists in the killing, according to security group Crisis24. Initially based in western Uganda, the ADF has operated in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu Province since the late 1990s.
The ADF is considered one of the most lethal of more than 120 armed groups in the eastern DRC. In 2019, the ADF split into two factions, one merging into the Islamic State Central Africa Province. The U.S. government in 2021 designated the ADF as a foreign terrorist organization with links to the Islamic State.
An ADF splinter group was suspected in the June 16 slaughter of 37 students, most of them Christians, at the dormitories of a private school in Mpondwe, Kasese District.
Uganda’s constitution and other laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to propagate one’s faith and convert from one religion to another. Muslims make up no more than 12 percent of Uganda’s population, with high concentrations in eastern areas of the country.
Christian tour guide Eric Alayi was slain along with two tourists in western Uganda on Oct. 17, 2023. (Uganda Police Force X account)
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