In July 2008, Sayid Ali Sheik Luqman Hussein was shot dead by Islamic extremists in Afgoye, near Somalia’s capital Mogadishu. The reason? He had converted from Islam to Christianity and was actively sharing his new-found faith with others.

Liibaan Ibraahim Hassan, a Somali Christian convert from Islam, was executed by Muslim extremists in 1994. In 2008 at least three converts to Christianity were murdered

Somalia is a Muslim country (over 99%), with a tiny number of Christians, most of them converts from Islam. The traditional religion of the Somali people is Islam, and most Somalis take for granted that a true Somali is a Muslim. Christianity is often associated with the oppression of the country by colonial masters. Also there is a long history of conflict between Muslim Somalis and Christian Ethiopians, which escalated in 2006 when Ethiopian forces intervened in the Somali civil war between Mogadishu warlords and Islamic militia, who wanted to see shari‘a implemented throughout the country.

For these reasons, converts to Christianity are often considered traitors, and many converts have been murdered in recent years by Islamist radicals who vowed a few years ago that they would kill all Somali Christians in Mogadishu. In 2008 alone at least three converts to Christianity, including Sayid, were killed by Muslim extremists. While apostasy (leaving Islam) is officially prohibited only in Somaliland and Puntland, it is effectively considered a crime by most of society in the rest of the country. As more extreme and conservative forms of Islam are entering the country through teaching at externally funded Islamic schools and universities, and as the government fails to put into place and enforce measures to provide freedom of worship and religion, the situation for Christians in Somalia is becoming increasingly grim.