CAUTION: This article contains details of a persecution event that may be difficult for some people to read. Some details have been edited out in consideration to some readers' sensitivities. Please read this article prayerfully.
From a distance, life on the coast of northern Mozambique may have once looked peaceful. Locals made a living fishing from their dhow boats, children played soccer on the beach, and women tended to their homes. But if anyone had taken a closer look at what was happening in northern Mozambique in early 2017, they would have heard the discontentment that was growing in towns and villages along the coast. Only elites were benefitting from the area’s rich natural resources, and corruption had made the situation only riper for radicalized Islamic groups to entice discontented youth into joining their ranks.
In October 2017 the situation reached boiling point – northern Mozambique was pushed on the world stage when armed men attacked police stations in Macimboa da Praia. Since then the attacks have become even more strategic, bolder and violent, displacing more than a million people.
The ‘armed men’ are now a full-fledged Islamist militant group set out to establish an Islamic state in the region.
It's easy to summarize the human impact into a number, but each one is a person, many Christians, with their own story, pain and struggles whose lives have been forever changed because of the insurgency.
Ernesto*, a 38-year-old husband and father, is one of them. He survived by what can only be described as God’s providence after being crucified and burnt when the jihadists captured him.
Ernesto provided for his family by selling fish, a job he was forced to take up after he lost his job as a data entry clerk. He travelled to the beach close to his house where he would buy fish from the local fisherman and then sell it again. It’s while Ernesto was waiting on the fisherman to arrive that he met ‘Al-Shabaab’ in 2019.
“That day I waited for dusk to go to the beach to meet the fishermen. But that day, when it was between five and six in the afternoon. The terrorists arrived and started shooting. They started to burn down the houses. I tried to run… but I kept hearing gunshots... I didn't see how to escape”, he recalls.
In the commotion of what was happening, Ernesto recalls that a few people managed to flee. But many of them feared the armed men that outnumbered the village. According to Ernesto there are usually about 200 to 300 who attack a village or several villages simultaneously, making it difficult for people to escape. As soon as people run, they begin to shoot or use machetes to stab anyone who tries to run. During this attack, he recalls that there were over 100 armed militants.
“I saw they burned the churches, but they didn't burn the mosque…. there were two churches in that village, both churches were burned.” They did however kill the local imam.
The attackers caught Ernesto and forced him to join a group of people that had already been rounded up. “When they caught us, they gave us luggage, bags for us to carry. Things that they had looted, with people’s belongings in it.”
Thinking back to that day Ernesto likens the luggage they each had to carry to the cross Jesus carried to Golgatha. The bag was big and heavy. Under the weight he stumbled and fell. It was enough to invite the wrath of the jihadists. They ordered the entire group to halt and Ernesto to get up, but he couldn’t.
“…they hit me on the back with a weapon. I tried to get up while all the others were looking at me. They had their bags over their heads, they were afraid. Even if the bags were heavy, they couldn't put them down because they were afraid.”
Ernesto managed to get to his knees.
“That's when they took out the machete, they hit me in the head on the left side. I started bleeding... They said that I had to pray so that I could carry that luggage… I had to pray in Arabic. I said ‘no, I am not a Muslim. I’m a Christian…”
When Ernesto mentioned the name Jesus, his captors were roused: “Do you pray to Jesus? Are you a Christian?”.
“I said ‘yes I’m a Christian’. They started laughing, they laughed and laughed, then they asked for a knife.” The jihadists went on to torture Ernesto in such a terrible and dehumanizing manner.
Ernesto also recalls that some of the terrorists were children who could be as young as 14 or 15. He vividly remembers that it was a boy of about 14 who cut off his ear and tortured him.
“He [the boy] was told to do it, and he did… I couldn't underestimate that child, I couldn’t look down on him because he was a child. No. That child was the boss of the place. He had all the tools. If I moved in any way… I would die.”
“There were a few people who managed to escape, but there weren't many. Other people were beheaded. They [Al-Shabaab] got sticks and placed the heads on it. Then they placed the sticks facing the road.” It was a clear warning – stay and this is your fate.
What happened to Ernesto is disturbing and still the jihadists were not done with him. Even after what he endured, they insisted that he had to pray in Arabic and carry their luggage.
“I said no, I can’t pray in Arabic. I don’t know how because I’m a Christian, I am Jesus’. They said ‘okay, since you are insisting on talking about Jesus, we will show you the example, of what Jesus passed through.”
They brought out very long nails, and a hammer.
“They looked for a large tree and cut a stake, took some nails and nailed the stake to that tree so that it could serve as a cross. They lifted me up, leaned me against that tree and started nailing my knee into the tree.” The men first nailed his left ankle and knee into the tree and then moved on to the right.
“Their idea was to crucify me like Jesus. Because I was saying that I could not pray as a Muslim.”
When his captors mercifully ran out of nails, they used wires to hold his arms in place and tie him to the improvised cross.
“That wasn't enough for them. I was bleeding, my legs were bleeding, my knees, my feet, my ear that was cut off, my head was full of wounds... I was bleeding all over.”
Somehow Ernesto was still alive... He heard them saying: “This one will take a long time to die, we will have to burn him. Like this on the cross, he will not be able to save himself”.
“They took plastic, lifted the collar of my shirt, lit the plastic, burned the collar, as I was crucified. I could not even defend myself.”
He recalls the jihadists saying: “This guy won’t be able to help himself, he won’t be able to get away because he’s crucified, he can’t even move or anything. Let’s go.”
Yet, God had other plans. A villager and his wife who had fled the attack were hiding in a nearby bush watching everything. When the jihadists left, the man rushed to where Ernesto was, threw sand on him and put out the fire. He untied Ernesto, and together with his wife they transported him to a nearby town where he reported the incident to the police.
Ernesto escaped, but not without severe burns to his chest and back. When he was eventually taken to a hospital, the doctors removed the nails in his knees. At first his swollen feet and legs rendered him paralyzed. He continued initial treatment and spent 45 days in hospital. Once home, his recovery was not without complications. The regenerating skin caused other complications like severe itching and keloid scarring. The scars were also psychological. Not only because of what happened but the immense pain from the healing skin caused him great discomfort and left his body disfigured.
“I thought I was nobody in this society anymore. Why did this happen (to me)? … I saw how bad I looked... It was like a horror movie with a strange face staring back at me…I even thought ‘I’m going to kill myself’.”
Ernesto and his family were isolated and barely anyone reached out to him. An OD supported caregiver came to hear of his story and started visiting him.
“When I met with Ernesto, his condition was very serious. He complained a lot about pain and was also very traumatized, not only because of what had happened but also because it took a long time for him to receive any kind of support [even] from the church.”
The caregiver reached out to the ministry, and Open Doors covered Ernesto’s medical bills as he needed continued medical care. At the hospital he underwent at least three surgeries and spent almost seven months before fully recovering.
“He was very discouraged,” the caregiver remembers. “His condition was debilitating, not only emotionally, but at the same time, he was deeply impacted…because he did not expect that the first contact for his help would come from just one person, or from a young person similar to him. I remember him saying, 'I am here but I am not alone; I am with God, and I am with many brothers involved in this process’.”
“… they helped me, they prayed for me and that's why I'm feeling well because of the intervention of these brothers in Christ”, Ernesto says. “I am very, very grateful to this organization.”
Looking back at when he thought life was hopeless, Ernesto remembers that “I was going to commit suicide, but something told me, ‘No, you have to be strong. You have a daughter that you need to care for. This daughter has no one else who can take care of her, except you’. So, because of my daughter, I started to have a different attitude, a new courage to be able to live this life”.
When the jihadist tortured and tried to kill Ernesto, they likely thought they would distinguish his faith in God, and his witness. By grace he held on to God’s Word. “When someone slaps you on one side, you should give them the other also. I like that part because that’s what I did…”
Ernesto’s suffering has not pushed him away from God, but instead it’s drawn him closer to the One who first suffered for us.
“At that time, when they told me to pray in Arabic, I knew that I could not deny who I was. If I belonged to Christ, I had to belong to Christ, no matter if they killed me… and when they were already nailing me, I couldn't say ‘no, I'm a Muslim’. No, because I'm not a Muslim, I am Christ's. So, I had to speak the truth, I couldn't lie’.”
“I ask God to forgive these people [his attackers]. I ask God and prayed every day for God to make them stop this, for God to forgive them. I don't hold any grudges against them, I've also forgiven them and I'm praying to God the Father and Jesus to forgive these people, for them to think about a positive life, positive thoughts and stop doing these evil things”.
Ernesto’s faith and resilience is difficult to relate to and yet it’s an example to us. “It happened, there's no denying it. It happened, but that can't stop me from doing other things either. I have to do other things and if this happened, it's over now. And although there are some complications, I'm fine emotionally and physically, I'm fine for now… emotionally I'm also free, but I want to fight forward, I want to fight for the good of my daughter so that she can study.”
Despite not being certain about the motives of the ‘Al-Shabaab’, Ernesto knows for sure that “they identify themselves as Muslims, and they don't like it if there’s a Christian among the people, that's for sure”.
He also reveals that during the incident, “if they want to chop off someone’s head, they have to say ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is most great). If they want to shoot all together, they have to shout ‘Allahu Akbar’, it's like a chant, a song for them. It's something they swear by... ‘Allahu Akbar’, and they'll do anything, stab someone. Even when they were cutting off my ear, they said that. So, everything they want to do, every crime they want to commit, they have to mention ‘Allahu Akbar’, I don't know why”.
Though the jihadists are locally known as Al-Shabaab there is no evidence of them being linked to the terrorist group in Somalia. The insurgents are thought to be made up of different jihadist groups with at least one associating themselves with the Islamic State. The most prominent groups go by names such as Ahlu al-Sunnah wal-Jamaah (ASJ), Ansar al-Sunnah and ISIS– Mozambique. Their ultimate goal being to establish a caliphate.
PLEASE PRAY
Ernesto asks prayers for his small business to thrive, so he can better care for himself; and also that he can get his driver’s license.
“And I ask you pray that one day my family and I can have a place to live, in this case a house. I am having a hard time in this area, I don't have a house, we are having a hard time. We live in a rented house, so I ask for prayers so that one day my family and I can live peacefully in our own home, our own family home”, he said.
“I also ask for prayers for my Northern Zone. Children are unwell, churches are unsafe… in the Northern Zone, Christians are persecuted. I am asking for prayer so that this ends, so that we Christians are free here in the Northern Zone. So that the children are free, so that the children go to school freely, because now the children cannot study. The children do not desire to go to school… And also so that people do their activities as they did before, because now no one works in the fields. Children are going hungry because no one goes to the fields. No one is producing food, children are malnourished because they do not eat a proper meal, because of this persecution, because of this terror. So, I ask for prayer on behalf of the Northern Zone.”
He also asks prayers for the several families like him who are displaced from the north of Mozambique. “We are going through a lot. Many people are displaced, without a home, without a place to sleep, without food to eat, because of the war.”
Despite his past suffering and the current hardship and challenges, Ernesto continues to look up to God for strength. He holds on to his faith. He does not let his past put his back to the ground. He hopes to make a successful live for himself and take care of his family. He also has a passion for teaching, and hopes to be actively involved with this in the future.
With all what he has had to endure, he shares “… a part of me was sorry. Another part said ‘it's okay, you lost this here, God did it for a certain purpose because nothing happens without His purpose, everything happens for His purpose.”
- Thank the Lord for such unwavering faith
- Continue to pray for complete and holistic healing for Ernesto
- Pray that the Lord will incline His ear to Ernesto’s prayers for himself and his country
