NAIROBI, Kenya — The Muslim husband of a woman in Somalia sent her back to her parents for accepting Christ — without their three young children — and then her parents drove her away for sharing the Gospel with her sister, sources said.
Fatuma Hussein, 30, was beaten and then ostracized by her birth family on March 22 for sharing her new faith in Christ with her sister in Tabta village, Lower Juba Region, said the leader of a Christian team that first visited her on March 15.
They entered a house that day as her relatives were breaking the daily Ramadan fast at about 7:30 p.m., and Hussein’s husband was not present. The team found Hussein unwell and complaining of Jinn (supernatural beings from the unseen world in Islam) power menacing her; they prayed for her and left for another village, the leader said.
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On March 17, Hussein phoned the team to let them know that ever since they prayed for her, she had felt peace and comfort in her heart and invited them back to her house. When they arrived, she happily requested more prayer and said she would pay them $100 USD — which the team declined, telling her that salvation was a free gift of God through His Son, Issa (Jesus), the leader said.
Hussein told the team that she had heard the voice of God telling her, “Receive my power so that you can pray for others for healing as well,” he said.
“She needed some clarification on this, and we took time explaining to her that she is a vessel of God, and she was receiving salvation in Christ Jesus,” the leader told Morning Star News. “After she received Christ as her Savior, we left the village to go to another area for mission outreach.”
On March 19, Hussein boldly shared her new faith with her husband, Ibrahim Suleiman. Angry with her for embracing a faith different from Islam, he informed her parents, and Hussein’s father told Suleiman to send her back to him so that he could “deal with the issue,” Hussein said.
On March 20, Hussein’s husband sent her back to relatives without their three children, ages 7, 5 and 3, she said. Undaunted, she began sharing about the love of God with her sister, the Christian leader said.
On March 22, Hussein’s father learned about her sharing Christ with his other daughter and began mistreating her, the leader added. Hussein told him, “My father started beating me with sticks and threatening to kill me and immediately kicked me out of the family by chasing me away with a sharp sword. He even told my husband to beat and even kill me whenever I am seen around.”
Driven from both families, Hussein is lonely and praying for them to receive what she has received, the leader said. His team has connected her with a nearby underground Christian family, a stop-gap measure that he doesn’t regard as safe in the long term.
Hussein said she was trusting God to take her to a safe place where she can have freedom to worship God.
“I have lost my children, but the peace of God will continue comforting my heart,” she told the leader. “Please tell Christian families wherever they are to continue praying for me and support me with money to buy food to sustain me wherever I will be staying, so that I do not become a burden, and more so that God will sustain and meet all my physical and spiritual needs. I am lonely, but Issa is with me.”
Somalia’s Constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and prohibits the propagation of any other religion, according to the U.S. State Department. It also requires that laws comply with Sharia (Islamic law) principles, with no exceptions in application for non-Muslims.
The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law, according to mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence. An Islamic extremist group in Somalia, al Shabaab, is allied with al Qaeda and adheres to the teaching.
Al Shabaab and its sympathizers have killed several non-locals in northern Kenya since 2011, when Kenyan forces led an African coalition into Somalia against the rebels in response to terrorist attacks on tourists and others on Kenya’s coast.
Somalia is ranked No. 2 on Christian support group Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of the 50 countries where it’s most difficult to be a Christian.
This article was originally published at Morning Star News
Morning Star News is the only independent news service focusing exclusively on the persecution of Christians. The nonprofit’s mission is to provide complete, reliable, even-handed news in order to empower those in the free world to help persecuted Christians, and to encourage persecuted Christians by informing them that they are not alone in their suffering.
