The killers of three people this week in western Uganda accused them of supporting Christian work.

 Share Tweet

NAIROBI, Kenya, October 20, 2023 (Morning Star News)  

The killers of three people this week in western Uganda accused them of supporting Christian work, and an evangelist in Kampala was beaten unconscious after Muslim extremists on October 10 attacked him for being an “infidel,” sources said.
 
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.
 
“The Muslims got hold of him and started kicking and boxing him as others came beating him with sticks, as I watched from a distance, helpless,” the friend told Morning Star News. “Some bystanders shouted at me to disappear, or the attackers would beat me up. I then left my friend lying down.”
 
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.
 
“In my mission outreach, many have turned to Christ, especially business young men and women, students and some Muslim leaders,” Settimba told Morning Star News from his hospital bed. “I didn’t know that it was hurting Muslims for me to speak about Christ and use the Koran while evangelizing.”
 
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 Kasese District, suspected Islamic terrorists of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) shot dead a Ugandan Christian tour guide, Eric Alyai, and a foreign married couple in Queen Elizabeth National Park.
 
According to security agencies, 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.
 
An area resident who witnessed that attack while fetching firewood told Morning Star News that she heard the sound of bullets and hid. When the Muslim extremists approached the tourists’ vehicle, they shouted, “We know you are the people who are supporting Christians in Uganda and coming in the name of tourists,” according to the resident, whose name is withheld for security reasons.
 
“Then and there they fired on them and then later burnt the vehicle to ashes,” the source told Morning Star News.
 
Alyai was known to take tourists to Christian-owned hotels in Kasese, which helped generate income for the local church, and 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.
 
Alyai, the resident of Entebbe municipality in Wakiso District, is survived by his wife, Ruth Mutamba, and a small child.
 
“Many people in Kasese are now mourning for the death of Eric Alyai,” a source told Morning Star News. “He was known for his good work in tourism and supporting the work of God in western Uganda.”
 
An ADF splinter group was suspected in the June 16 slaughter of 37 Christian students at the dormitories of a private school in Mpondwe, Kasese District.
 
The attacks this month were 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.