Two church buildings destroyed in Tanzania

ZANZIBAR, Tanzania — Two church buildings were razed after worship services June 28 on the island of Zanzibar.

Suspected radical Muslims set the church buildings on fire on the outskirts of Unguja Township on Zanzibar, the Tanzanian island off the coast of East Africa, in what church leaders called the latest incidents of a rising tide of religious intolerance.

With Christian movements making inroads in the Muslim-dominated area, the Evangelical Assemblies of God in Tanzania (EAGT) church and a Pentecostal Evangelical Fellowship of Africa church building a few miles away were burned down as a fierce warning, church leaders said.

“We don’t want churches on our street,” read a flier dropped at the door of Charles Odilo, who had donated the plot on which the EAGT building stood. “Today we are going to burn the church, and if you continue, we are going to burn your house also.”