Five Christians Drown After Being Thrown Off Boat for Refusing to Denounce Their Faith

( elizabethjohnston )

Five Ugandan evangelists died recently after being thrown off a boat for refusing to denounce their faith.

The Christians were members of End Times Ministry church and were traveling on a commercial transportation boat not to visit a church when they encountered a group of about 10 Muslims.

The evangelists began preaching Christ to the Muslim passengers, who became irate and began making threats.

“On our way, Tonny Ankunda started preaching to the people on the boat, which resulted in a huge argument between Muslims and the missionaries concerning the Sonship of our Lord Jesus Christ,” survivor Amos Kyakulaga, who was acting as a guide to the Christians, told Morning Star News.

The Muslim men told the passengers, “If you continue insisting that Jesus is the Son of God, then Allah will kill all of you.”

When the evangelists continued to confess Christ as Lord, one of the men told them, “We are giving you one last minute to stop your blasphemy and to convert by confessing the shahada (Islamic creed), or else your lives are at risk.”

The Christians refused and were grabbed and thrown off the boat one by one.

All five drowned.

All of the Muslims on board were reportedly in agreement that the Christians should be killed, and the pilot did nothing to intervene.

Kyakulaga only avoided being thrown overboard by claiming he was not traveling with the evangelists.

When the boat docked, he traveled to the church they had been set to visit and was able to obtain help from local officials to retrieve the bodies.

The deceased were named as Ankunda, 44; Peter Agaba, 28; Juliet Ashaba, 39; Johnson Karungi, 27; and Julius Lweere, 52.

Police have been in contact with local officials as well as leaders from the churches where the drowned Christians had been set to visit.

Although Uganda’s population of Muslims is just around 12%, there have been a number of such slayings in regions where they are more concentrated.

In January, a young mother and her small children were hanged after she began attending a Christian church; and last year a pastor was killed after refusing to move his church from near a mosque.

We have also previously covered incidents where new Christians were targeted with violence by their own family members after leaving Islam to follow Christ.