Somali Christian Covert Kidnapped, Beheaded

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent

sudan mapHUDUR, SUDAN (Worthy News)-- The body of a kidnapped Christian convert from Islam was found decapitated near Hudur City on Sept. 2.

Sources said Juma Nuradin Kamil was forced into a car by three suspected members of al Shabaab; after a search by the community, his headless body was found on a street.

Muslim members of al Shabaab -- a militant group with ties to al Qaeda -- have vowed to rid Somalia of all Christians.

A Christian who saw Kamil's body said it bore the marks of an al Shabaab killing.

"His head was put on his chest," he said.

"It is usual for the al Shabaab to decapitate those they suspect to have embraced the Christian faith, or sympathizers of Western ideals," said a leader in Somalia's underground church. "Our brother accepted the Christian faith three years ago and was determined in his faith in God. We greatly miss him."

At first, the community didn't bury the body out of fear of retaliation by militant Islamists.

"The community feared burying him, and his body lay in the open for two days before unknown people buried him secretly," he said.

Al Shabaab seeks to impose a strict version of shar'ia, yet while the transitional government in Mogadishu fights for control of the country, President Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed embraces a version that mandates the death penalty for all those who leave Islam.

Earlier this year, two Muslim extremists murdered a member of an underground Christian community; an area source told Compass News that two al Shabaab militants shot 21-year-old Hassan Adawe Adan in Shalambod town on April 18.

In Warbhigly village on the outskirts of Mogadishu, a mother of four was killed for her Christian faith by al Shabaab in January; Asha Mberwa, 36, was murdered when Islamists slit her throat in front of her fellow villagers.