By BosNewsLife Africa Service
MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (BosNewsLife)– Islamic fighters from the militant al-Shabab group in Somalia have beheaded a Christian on the outskirts of the war-torn nation’s capital Mogadishu, a Christian news agency reported Wednesday February 8.
The militants fighting the transitional government in Mogadishu murdered Zakaria Hussein Omar, 26, on January 2 in Cee-carfiid village, about 15 kilometers (nine miles) outside of Mogadishu, said Compass Direct News, which investigates cases of reported persecution.
Omar reportedly worked for a Christian humanitarian organization that al-Shabab banned last year.
His body was left lying for 20 hours before nomads found it and carried it into Mogadishu, an unidentified
friend was quited as saying.
“We have been communicating with Omar, and he was sharing with me his life as a Christian,” the friend said.
“Last year he mentioned to me that his life was in danger when the NGO [Non-Governmental Organization] he worked for was banned by theal-Shabab.”
The friend said he identified the body.
LEAVING ISLAM
“One of the persons who saw him said, ‘This is the young man who stayed in Ethiopia, and people have been saying that he left Islam and joined Christianity.’”
Omar converted to Christianity seven years ago while in Ethiopia, where he lived with relatives. He returned to Somalia in 2008 and completed his university education in 2009 with a degree in accounting, Christians said.
Omar, who married in 2010, is survived by his wife, parents, a brother and four sisters.
Several other Christians are also known to have been killed in recent months by Islamic militants.
SOMALIA MUSLIMS
Over 99 percent of Somalia’s nearly 10 million people are Muslims. The tiny Christian minority of perhaps thousands of people comprises many ethnic Bantus as well as humanitarian workers and expatriates, Christian aid groups say
While the government has pledged to crackdown on militants, Christian analysts have expressed concerns that even the United Nations-backed transitional administration of President Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed supports a version of Islamic law that mandates the death penalty for all those who leave Islam.
Amid the Islamic tensions, Christians also face mistreatment.
A Somali woman, who converted from Islam to Christianity, has been nursing her injuries after she was reportedly paraded before a cheering crowd and publicly flogged in December as a punishment for embracing a “foreign religion.”
Christians said 28-year-old Sofia Osman from Janale city in Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region, had been taken into custody by fighters of the Islamic militant group al-Shabab militants in November and that the public mistreatment was meant to mark her release.
(Following comment underscores the difficulties Christians face in Somalia).
Somalian people are Sunni muslims and so whoever converted to Christian will be behead. Although I don’t support Al-Alshabab but on the other hand I do support when they behead those who convered to christian..
This story is clearly fabricated. Anyone who knows the Somali society will raise its suspicion. First of all, millions of Somalis visit and live in Ethiopia and hardly anyone converts, I find it hard to believe that this “Omar” went there and converted then came back to finish his education. Honestly this is poor attempt to generate propaganda against Somali society by Christian Compass Direct News.
To make things seem believable, this Omar is in a village where he has no relatives…and to make things worse his decomposed body is identified by a “friend” who just discovered this body by “chance” after nomads recovered….nomads didnt bury him they brought his decomposed body to Mogadishu…
This whole story is fake. First of all if nomads found his body according to Islam culture, they would bury him, they would load him on a camel.
This is completely fake story with so many contradictions, no facts, just this Omar, nomad, some bushes and al shabab.
We hate al shabab but we also hate lairs. This Compass Direct News Christians are as fanatic as al shabab.
Weak article. Please write something else.
Islam showing its true face, yet again. It must be fought at all costs.
since somalia is 100% nuslim, if the person who converted christianity has friendship and love muslim people and dont use his conversion to abuse or offend islam, i believe he has to live peace and follow sharia of the teritory he live and pay jisya. if he is doing some contrary to islam or teaches christianity, he has to be killed or crucified. how ever i dont claim that alshabab were right or wrong ror their action
Those Who Feed Off Anarchy Fuel It !
Your logic is a caveman’s logic asaado! you are happily shroud yourselve in superstition, magic and blind faith rather than burn the extra mental calories it takes to think critically and reach your own rational conclusions.
“I don’t have to default to those kind of explanations. Your problem is not with the adequacy of the cognitive mechanisms you have inherited; it is with the inability to turn them off. Arab religious faith in Somalia is a cancer of the mind – a vestigial tail on human intellect. Belief in religious dogma requires that a person ignore common sense, critical analysis, rational thought and reason; in fact, mybe your magic Arab religion consider the act of questioning their teachings to be blasphemous and worthy of punishment, any philosophy that prohibits questions regarding its content is unworthy of esteem or protection.
There is nothing praiseworthy about a decision to ‘turn off your mind’ and accept religious dogma as truth.
The current chaos on my country is proof of this arab, talibaan wannabe copycat culture and cultural Pollution of Arab religion, our clan system only .
Somalia will be better off when it shakes itself loose from the mire and muck of arab lie, the muslim myth, and the caveman beliefs. Grow up miss/mr asaado., get a brain, and stop believing and dreaming in fairies, virgins, ghosts and demons. Have you ever seen any arab or muslim crying for somalia?
The Islamist and the armed group al-Shabaab is subjecting inhabitants of southern Somalia to killings, cruel punishments, and repressive social control.
Al-Shabaab continue to conduct indiscriminate attacks, killing and wounding numerous civilians in southern Somalia. Harsh punishments including amputations and floggings, which are meted out regularly and without due process. People accused of being traitors or Somalia sympathizers – often on flimsy pretexts – face execution or assassination. Islamist foreigner from Pakistan, afganistan and arabs with their somalian henchmen has used unrelenting repression and brutality, The population under Islamist and al-Shabaab’s control is paying a very steep price.
Many local al-Shabaab authorities devote extraordinary energy to policing the personal lives of women and preventing any mingling of the sexes.
Al-Shabaab has subjected young men and boys to abuses that include forced military recruitment and strict social control, Beatings or public humiliations are commonly meted out to men , indiscriminate warfare, terrifying patterns of repression, and brutal acts of targeted violence on a daily basis.”
Alshabab fighters regularly fire mortar rounds indiscriminately into populated neighborhoods controlled by the transitional government. They frequently fire from residential areas in apparent hope of attracting retaliatory attacks that will damage the image of the transitional government and AU forces. Al-Shabaab and other opposition fighters threaten and kill civilians they see as sympathetic to somalia government. Al-Shabaab has also carried out devastating suicide attacks against civilians, including one at a university graduation ceremony in Mogadishu that killed at least 22 people in December 2009.
The fighting devastated Mogadishu, drove hundreds of thousands of Somalis from their homes, and spawned a massive humanitarian crisis that continues to worsen. Ethiopian forces withdrew by the beginning of 2009, but the violence continues unabated.
Alshabab “ Al-Lucifers” followers have some seriously bad wiring above the neck. Somalian pride is not dependent upon Islam, and Islam in Somalia is not dependent upon alshabab, nor upon beliefs of terrorists and jihadists like Al Shabab or any islamist. The only way to tame these savages is by brute force.”Those Who Feed Off Anarchy in somalia Fuel It”. If they love so much sharia as law and accepted arab way of life, they can all move to Arab country ,They wont be missed.
Asaado should be ashamed of himself. If he is a Muslim he should know that the Quran provides no mandate for such crimes against Allah; the religious leaders of the Islamic world have consistently condemned such violence; and his humanity is completely lacking if he thinks that the murder of an innocent person is acceptable
The decision should be left to the Somali people, if they dont want Christians in their country, then Amisom who are mainly funded by Christian countries such as the USA and Europe should pull out and leave people like Asaado to the law and life of Al shabab!
Mr reer kismaayood, I see your words as christian fanatic or zealot who lives in distress and frustration and Has no place to retreat. Waaw its first time to heard islam as cavemans’ believe or blind faith. I don’t want to qoute your horible and ilogical abuse against islam but let me remind you that islam is peace and enjoins what is good and forbids what is evil and is solution to the evils of man kind. Again if alshabab one christian persons is nothinh of wory becouse millions of muslims are attacked excuted and assassinated under covet hodden religiouse war. We are state of jihad of muslims against crusade of christian. We somalis, we don’t nead other then islam specially poul religion. Salaam
“This story is clearly fabricated.”
You tool of Satan, hell awaits you, genocidal unrepentant reprobate antichrist.