NAIROBI, Kenya — Islamic extremists beheaded two young boys in Somalia because their Christian father refused to divulge information about a church leader, and the killers are searching Kenya’s refugee camps to do the same to the boys’ father.
Before taking his Somali family to a Kenyan refugee camp in April, 55-year-old Musa Mohammed Yusuf was the leader of an underground church in Yonday village, 19 miles from Kismayo, Somalia. Militants from the Islamic extremist group al Shabaab, Arabic for “the Youth,” entered Yonday village Feb. 20, went to Yusuf’s house and interrogated him about his relationship with Salat Mberwa, leader of a fellowship of 66 Somali Christians.
Yusuf told them he knew nothing of Mberwa and had no connection with him. The Islamic extremists left but said they would return the next day. Yusuf fled and the following day, the militants showed up at his home in Yonday. Batula Ali Arbow, Yusuf’s wife, said the extremists ordered her to stop what she was doing and took hold of three of her sons — Abdi Rahaman Musa Yusuf, 11; Hussein Musa Yusuf, 12; and Abdulahi Musa Yusuf, 7.
“I watched my three boys dragged away helplessly as my youngest boy was crying,” Arbow said. “I knew they were going to be slaughtered.” The youngest boy escaped but the other two boys were buried the following day. The family is now at a Kenyan refugee camp.
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