International Christian Concern (ICC) is reporting that Islamists shot and killed a Muslim convert to Christianity on July 10 in Afgyoye, a town 18 miles from Mogadishu, Somalia's capital. Twenty-eight-year-old Sayid Ali Sheik Luqman Hussein came to Christ from Islam in 2004 and had actively evangelized in the community in which he was working as a teacher. According to the July 28 report by ICC, on July 8, two Muslim men approached Mr. Hussein and asked him if he faces Mecca when he prays. Hussein told them that, as a Christian, he does not have to face a specific direction to pray because God is omnipresent. The two Muslim men returned on July 10 armed with an AK-47 assault rifle and a semi-automatic handgun and shot Hussein to death. Hussein's wife went into premature labour and delivered a stillborn baby upon hearing of her husband's murder.
Please remember to pray for Hussein's wife during this doubly tragic time in her life. Pray that she would know God as Emmanuel (God with us) in her grief. Pray for other Christians in Somalia. Hussein is the fifth Christian martyred in the country in the last nine months.
Go to the Somalia Country Report to discover more about the persecution of Christians in Somalia.