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Acid attack survivor Umar Mulinde targeted again in Uganda

Morning Star News

Pastor Umar Mulinde, a highly effective evangelist in Uganda who survived a horrific acid attack in 2011, said he recently escaped another attempted assault by Islamic extremists.

Following a one-week evangelistic event in Mubende, on 25th September Mulinde was driving the 145 kilometres back to the Ugandan capital of Kampala when a band of men blocked a road. He told Morning Star News he managed to maneuver around them.

Pastor Umar Mulinde

Pastor Umar Mulinde. PICTURE: Via Facebook.

They followed him to his home in such a way that he did not detect them, he said, and broke in later that night.

“They entered my house dressed in Islamic attire,” he told Morning Star News. “Muslim extremists forcefully broke into my home in the middle of the night, but after realising the danger, I sought God, and he gave me some wisdom to pray, which confused them, and they could not trace my whereabouts.”

He and other family members slipped out the back door, he said.

“We narrowly survived – I only lost a number of my personal household goods and office items such as laptops, iPads and phones, but precious life remained intact,” Pastor Mulinde said.

The former Islamic sheikh and grandson of a well-known imam said he believes the intruders intended to kill him following the campaign in which hundreds of people put their faith in Christ.

“This second attempted murder defeats human logic, due to the fact that I am guarded by police, unlike in 2011,” he said. “I had given my bodyguards a day off, and thugs succeeded to break into my home at night without being noticed. I narrowly survived this close attempt on my life, and I must really thank God.”

Police had yet to find the intruders, Mulinde said at the time of writing.

“What I know is that these attacks are connected to religious extremism and are protected by corrupt leaders paid off by the Muslim community,” he said.

That he is still ministering at all is a miracle, he said, as he was incapacitated after Muslim extremists threw acid on him on 24th December, 2011. He had come out of his church building in Namasuba, about 48 kilometres outside of Kampala, when a few men called out to him.

“As I entered my vehicle, people came and poured acid on my face, which caused my skin tissue to melt,” he said. “Indeed it was a catastrophic effect on my human flesh which dramatically changed my life. The acid would have burned me to near death had God not helped me.”

The acid continued to eat at his flesh even during initial treatment, and he was in constant, severe pain, though surgeons miraculously saved his sight and hearing in 2014. The evangelist who began Gospel Life Church International and led thousands of people to Christ lost much of the past seven years in recovery, receiving specialised treatment in Israel.

Today his Gospel Life Church International has more than 1,000 members, of which 35 per cent are former Muslims, according to the church website.

Police have yet to find those who attacked him on Christmas Eve 2011, the married father of six said.

“What is more frightening is that even the file of that attempted murder case is alleged to have been stolen from police – a big shock,” Mulinde told Morning Star News.

He suspects an illegal network within key positions has planted agents who are making sure that witnesses will be silenced so that the perpetrators will never be arrested.

This story is a truncated version of the original piece which can be read on Morning Star News.

 

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