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KIDNAPPED!
Sixteen-year-old James
Duku was kidnapped by rebel soldiers, then beaten. Why? Because
he's a Christian.
by C. Hope
Flinchbaugh
Imagine
having an AK47 pointed up your nose, with an angry soldier telling
you to leave town. This is exactly what happened to a 16-year-old
guy last June.
James Duku lives in Goro Goro, an African village in Uganda,
just below Sudan. You know, Sudan — the country that’s bombing its
Christians and starving its own children.
Well, this time the Sudanese government picked on a Ugandan
guy. Last June, James was doing gardening chores for his mother
when he was kidnapped by soldiers fighting in a rebel group under
the National Islamic Front militia. The NIF is supported by the
government of Sudan.
James found himself in the company of about a hundred other
guys and girls from his area, ages 10 to 16. And this was no
camping trip.
“I had to take off my shirt,” James said. “We were tied
together around the waist in groups of five. Our hands were also
tied behind our backs, and the soldiers told us if we cried,
they’d shoot us. While we marched north to Juba [a city in Sudan
controlled by the NIF], one boy started crying. They shot and
killed him.”
After frightening everyone out of their wits all day, the
soldiers made everyone sleep out in the open the first night. It
was no pajama party. The next morning James reported they were all
beaten, punched, kicked and slapped while being commanded not to
cry.
The young people were then forced to march in 105-degree heat
through the tall grass and flat brush. The few solitary trees on
the way provided little shade.
The soldiers followed a dried-up streambed part of the way to
Juba.
Convert or Die
“Most of us were Christians,” James
said.
It takes guts just to admit that in Sudan and Uganda these
days. The Sudanese government is on a campaign against
Christians—and against moderate Muslims and animists, too (the
traditional African religion). The plan’s simple. Either you
convert to a narrow interpretation of Islam or you die.
The kids knew they were being taken to radical Muslims in
northern Sudan who would gladly trade them for guns.
Their future? Some would be forced to fight in the NIF militia,
Sudan’s army. Others would be used for slaves. And everyone would
be forced to observe the Islamic religion.
As they were walking, the soldiers and their captives suddenly
found themselves under fire. The Ugandan army, known as UPDF, or
Ugandan People’s Defense Force, had launched a strike against
James’ abductors. When UPDF started firing, the NIF commanded the
children to stand, forcing them to be human shields. Amazingly,
James and six other boys managed to squirm loose from their ropes,
then took off running. They headed off in different directions,
their hands still tied behind their backs.
Gutsy Goro Goro
James waited for some time before
coming out of hiding. He couldn’t find the others, so he wandered
around the unfamiliar bush for days, lost and hungry. Finally, he
saw a grass hut in the dense Sudanese bush. What a find! A
Christian family lived there, and they gladly took him in. Several
weeks later an American man named Jim Jacobson, the head of
Christian Freedom International, found James and listened to his
story. The American asked James, “How do you feel now about God?
Do you feel He let you down because you were captured?” “I feel
grateful to be alive,” James replied. “God has been so good.”
Jacobson was in awe. Not only did James have the guts to make it
through the beatings, crossfire, and wandering alone in the bush,
but he had the courage to stick to his beliefs in spite of it all.
Jacobson arranged to have James taken back to his village in
Uganda, where he was united with his family in July. During the
crossfire, the UPDF had had to back down—they couldn’t shoot at
their own kids. So except for James and six other guys, the human
shield trick worked. More than 90 kids are still held captive.
Want to help?
“Please pray for us,” is the usual
request from the Sudanese and Ugandan Christian families. “Pray
our families will be reunited.”
And pass the word along. James is one gutsy Goro Goro guy. But
there are thousands of persecuted Christians like him in Sudan.
Tell somebody.
To set
the record straight:
Islam is a religion based on two
books, the Koran and the Hadith. Islam was started almost 1,400
years in Mecca and Medina, two cities in Saudi Arabia, by a guy
named Mohammed. About 850 million people in the world are Muslim.
Want to know more about persecuted Christians?
For a free mag from CFI write:
Christian Freedom International P.O. Box 16367 Washington, D.C.
20041 Phone: 800-323-2273
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