A Muslim neighbor had invited Hassan, his mother (name withheld for security reasons) and two siblings to Jamia Mosque in central Nairobi, one of Kenya’s most prominent mosques, on Dec. 3, telling them that Muslim leaders there could help them with their financial needs, relatives said.
At the mosque, they were introduced to a wealthy Arab who told them they could receive support, and later they were taken to his house on Mombasa Road, they said. Their first indication of trouble came when a non-Muslim worker there from the ethnic Luhya, a Bantu group, advised them that things may not be go well for them if they were Christians.
Hassan’s mother said they were surprised when the wealthy Arab and other Muslims told them that financial help was conditional on them renouncing Christianity.
“We were promised financial support for the school fees of the children and general upkeep of the family, but they were categorical that Muslims have no relation with infidels,” Hassan’s mother told Morning Star News. “To this, I refused to recant my faith in Christ.”
The family had initially accepted the offer of financial support, but when it became conditional on renouncing their faith and they refused, their Muslims hosts became angry, and the Christians had to flee the house, they said.
Hassan’s mother said that on Dec. 20 relatives suffered an attack in Jamu, in Somalia on the border with Kenya, where she maintains her ancestral home. Unknown assailants destroyed the roof and bashed gaping holes in the walls where one of her sons was living with his frail and ailing grandmother, she said.
Muslim relatives in Jamu on Dec. 15 had questioned her son about his absence from Friday mosque prayers, she said. The widow said she has recently received anonymous threats from Jamu threatening to do away with her family, and that she has received threatening text messages from the area since she sent him to live there two years ago.
The family has suffered at the hands of Somali Muslims in Nairobi for several years. On Feb. 7, 2016, Muslim relatives beat Hassan unconscious after discovering that the family was holding secret Christian meetings.
Muslim Somalis in Nairobi had seriously injured Hassan on Oct. 27, 2011, when a gang attacked him after they learned that family members had become Christian. The Somali neighbors hit him with a metal bar on his forehead and face, and he lost two teeth and sustained knife wounds to his hand. They left him for dead.
Somali Muslims in Nairobi have also attacked his mother.
“I have suffered several persecutions from the Muslims for converting to Christianity,” she said. “My stomach is ailing from the attack I suffered few years ago. I cannot stand in an upright position. I and my family have chosen the cause of Christ. No turning back.”
