Bangladesh
Bangladesh |
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Bangladesh is a country consistently plagued by
disaster. Almost half of this country is made up of low-lying land, most
of which is less than nine feet above sea level. This climate causes a
huge loss of life during the country’s frequent floods and cyclones, and
is responsible for billions of dollars worth of damage, as well as
continued poverty. Widespread rioting and a national strike were spurred
by a grenade attack that killed a former Finance Minister in 2005. |
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Bangladesh |
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The Voice of the Martyrs Four drivers of four different buses were hired by a militant Muslim group to crash into Andrew’s SUV on the morning of April 24th. On his way to visit 17 Muslim convert families, Andrew was rammed by a bus while in the front passenger seat of his moving vehicle. His left elbow was broken from the impact, and his right forearm was embedded with glass and severely lacerated in five places. The Voice of the Martyrs is providing continuing medical treatment for Andrew, who was attacked for his Christian witness. Immediately after the collision, the bus driver ran from the scene and reported to the leader of the hiring Islamic group that he killed the targeted Christian preacher in the red SUV. Wasting no time, two men from the Islamic group went to the accident site to confirm the bus driver’s account, but they were too late. Andrew’s driver had already driven the smashed SUV away from the scene to the nearest city, where the unconscious Andrew was later admitted to a government hospital. Once at the hospital, doctors cleaned some of Andrew’s wounds and transported him to an operating room where they extracted shattered glass from five large gashes in his left arm. Andrew later regained consciousness, bleeding and in great pain. When Andrew’s brother (a medical doctor) arrived at the hospital, he saw that Andrew’s treatment had been stopped, even though he needed more care. He quickly checked Andrew out of the hospital and took him to another doctor. Together, the two physicians extracted the remainder of the glass from the wounds and dressed them before driving Andrew over 370 miles to a large city. While traveling to the city, Andrew received four calls on his mobile phone. Even though he was not fully coherent because of the pain during the trip, Andrew remembers callers telling him, “Now you are going to heaven with your Isa (Christ).” Andrew believes that the perpetrating Islamic group kept the hospital staff from cleaning his wounds in the operating room. During the month of June, Andrew received more threatening phone calls from unidentified people within the attacking fundamentalist Muslim group. The Islamic terrorists attempted to instill more fear in Andrew by telling him they contracted four drivers of four separate buses to kill him. They confirmed the premeditation of their murder plot by divulging they knew from a source beforehand that he was going to travel in a red SUV to visit a group of Muslim converts on the morning of April 24th. Andrew believes the radical group gave instructions for the first bus driver who saw him on the road to smash into his vehicle. VOMedical is treating Andrew, who was still in pain after the initial medical procedure, which used a pin to hold the broken chip in his elbow together. Andrew is scheduled to travel for an operation and additional physical therapy. Andrew shared that his most recent phone calls from the militant group express they still plan to kill him. They meticulously described the make, model and color of the passenger vehicle in which he was to be transported and the date and location of his upcoming medical examination. For many years, Andrew has received phone calls threatening him and his family, and this is not the first attempt on his life. But despite all of this hostility and opposition, Andrew remains determined to continue his ministry to Muslim background believers. |
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