Somalia: A Country with no Christians?

Where is the hardest place in the world to be a Christian citizen? North Korea, perhaps? Saudi Arabia? According to Lars Widerberg of Intercessor's Network, it is the nation of Somalia. There are thought to be no more than a thousand Christians in a resident population of 8 million people, with perhaps a few thousand more in the diaspora. The Islamist Shabab militia, which controls most of southern Somalia, is dedicated to hunting these remaining Christians down and eliminating every one of them.

Christian men attend mosques on Fridays, so as not to arouse suspicion. Bibles are kept hidden. There are no public meetings, let alone a church. Catholic churches and cemeteries have been destroyed. The last nuns in the smashed capital, Mogadishu, were chased out in 2007. The year before, an elderly nun working in a hospital there was murdered. The only Christian believers left are local Somalis.
 
Catching and killing these Christians is useful propaganda for the Shabab, not least for indoctrinating its young fighters and suicide-bombers in the belief that America, Britain, Italy, the Vatican, along with Ethiopia and Kenya, are all “crusaders” trying to convert Somalis to Christianity. The UN lurks nefariously behind. Israel, of course, is also doing its bit to undermine Islam.
 
The shaky transitional government led by Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, whose writ runs weakly across the territory the Shabab does not yet run, is unlikely to speak up for any of its citizens caught with a Bible. Though professing moderation, he promotes a version of Sharia Law whereby every citizen of Somalia is born a Muslim and anyone who converts to another religion is guilty of apostasy, which is punishable by death.
 
Every month several Somalis are killed for being Christian. Sometimes that is just a label that the jihadists stick on people they suspect of working for Ethiopian intelligence. But many are simple believers. According to Somali sources and Christian groups monitoring Somalia from abroad, at least 13 members of underground churches have been killed in the past few months. Most were Mennonites, evangelized by missionaries on the Juba River in southern Somalia.

The martyrs include:

• A 46-year-old woman shot dead near the town of Jilib after a Swahili-language Bible was found in her shack;
• a 69-year-old man killed near a port south of Mogadishu after Shabab fighters found 25 Somali Bibles in a bag he was carrying;
• and two boys, aged 11 and 12, who were beheaded by the Shabab after their father refused to divulge information about an underground church.

Hundreds of Somalis may have been killed for being Christian since the Shabab arose in 2005.

According to Simba Tian, also of Intercessors Network, three masked members of a militant Islamist group in Somalia recently shot and killed a Somali Christian who declined to wear a veil as prescribed by Muslim custom, according to a Christian source in Somalia.

Members of the comparatively “moderate” Suna Waljameca group killed Amina Muse Ali, 45, on October 19th in her home in Galkayo, part of Somalia’s autonomous Puntland region, said the source who requested anonymity for security reasons.
 
Ali had told Christian leaders that she had received several threats from members of Suna Waljameca for not wearing a veil, symbolic of adherence to Islam. She had said members of the group had long monitored her movements because they suspected she was a Christian.
 
The source said Ali had called him on October 4th saying, “My life is in danger. I am warned of dire consequences if I continue to live without putting on the veil. I need prayers from the fellowship.” 
 
“I was shocked beyond words when I received the news that she had been shot dead,” the source in Somalia said by telephone. “I wished I could have recalled her to my location. We have lost a long-serving Christian.” 

Her death follows the murders of several other Christians by Islamic extremists in the past year.

Learn more at CBN.com's Understanding Islam Special Feature

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