7th December, 2015
A Christian father of five who supported 10 children whose families had disowned them for leaving Islam was killed by suspected Islamic extremists in eastern Uganda, Morning Star News reports.
A witness told MSN one of the three men who attacked 43-year-old Patrick Ojangole at 9.30pm on 2nd December had reproached him for failing to heed a warning to cease his Christian activities.
Ojangole and the witness, a friend known only as Muluga, were about 15 kilometres from their home village of Kashebai after traveling by bicycle to visit Ojangole’s in-laws in Palissa when two Muslim women stopped them. The women were fully covered in burqas as they sat on the roadside.
“Because it was late in the evening, we thought they needed some help from us, so we stopped, and while we were still talking with them, a man arrived and started asking for our identification cards,” Muluga said.
Believing he was a policeman, they produced their national ID cards, and immediately two masked men appeared, he said.
“The two women immediately pulled out swords from their burqas and gave them to the men, and there we realised that we were in the hands of dangerous, armed men, so we had to cooperate with them as they forced us to leave the bicycle and then dragged us to the swamp close to the river,” Muluga said.
He reported that one of the masked men said, “Patrick, you have not heeded our warning to stop your Christian activities of changing our children to your religion". Hence it is possible that at least one of the assailants knew Ojangole, or that Muslims he knew had hired the men to attack him. Muluga said they seemed interested only in Ojangole and may have asked for his ID card to ensure he was the one they sought.
“The attackers were not so harsh towards me,” he said. “Their efforts were directed at Patrick.”
As the interrogation continued, the two women who had stayed behind on the roadside arrived.
“The three men then got hold of Patrick and, fearing for my life, I managed to escape as the two women pulled out about four swords that they had placed inside their clothes,” he said. “I heard some commotion taking place and one loud cry while I was 50 metres away.”
Muluga immediately notified a Christian leader and police. Early the next morning he and the Christian leader went to the site.
“We went to the place of the incident and found Patrick’s body in a pool of blood in the Kashebai area, and his body badly mutilated,” said the Christian leader, whose name is withheld for security reasons.
Police are investigating and searching for the attackers, while fear has gripped Kashebai village residents, he said.
Ojangole, a member of a local Pentecostal church, leaves behind a wife and five children, two boys and three girls ranging in age from seven to 16.
“Patrick was a very committed Christian and a hard-working farmer,” the Christian leader said. “From his farm work, he used to support 10 children from Muslim families who had been ostracised by their families.”
The bloodshed was the latest in a series of attacks on Christians in eastern Uganda.
