A Christian evangelist who had led 18 Muslims in eastern Uganda to faith in Jesus Christ was beaten to death after being confronted by a group of young Islamists, Morning Star News reported.

According to Morning Star’s East Africa correspondent, 29-year-old evangelist Emmanuel Dikusooka, a husband and father of three young children, and a fellow church member, Jack Mbulante, were confronted on a bridge by a gang of Islamic extremists three days into an evangelistic campaign in Kaliro town. The Islamists, described as “youth” who were armed with swords, sticks and metal rods, confronted the men as they were traveling back to their hotel on a motorcycle they had rented.

The six youths forcibly took the men’s belongings, which included Bibles and Christian books.

“They threw them all into the River Lumbuye, then ordered us to hold the Quran up that they had and told us to recite and swear in the name of Allah,” Mbulante told Morning Star News. “They tried to force us to renounce Jesus Christ and our faith and then embrace the Islamic faith. We openly refused, which angered them, and they hit Dikusooka with an iron bar on the head, and he fell down.”

According to the report, Mbulante swam to the other side of the river and ran to get help. When Mbulante and a group of Christian men returned, Dikusooka was dead in a pool of blood with injuries to his head and mouth and cuts to his neck and back.

Police were reportedly searching for the killers. Some of the former Muslims who were converted by Dikusooka’s preaching know the assailants, Morning Star said, and were in hiding out of fear for their lives.

Dikusooka had organized the open-air services in Nawaikoke—a heavily Muslim trading area in Karilo—along with other evangelists from nearby towns. It began on Oct. 28 and was scheduled to conclude Nov. 2.

The incident was one of at least 17 violent attacks on Christians or Christian converts documented by Morning Star News this year in eastern Uganda.

Uganda, which is only 12% Muslim, provides for religious freedom and the propagation of one’s beliefs in its constitution and in its laws. But in the eastern part of the country where Muslims are predominant, attacks on Christians have increased.

A busy trading district in Kisoro, Uganda. In recent years, Islamist violence against Christians has increased. Photo: Alamy.com