Uganda's Faithful Dead

A fiery, murderous tragedy highlights the rapid rise of fringe Christian groups in Africa

All that remains of the mud-and-concrete church building that nestled on the side of a pretty, eucalyptus-studded hill near the town of Kanungu, in southwestern Uganda, is a few sheets of corrugated tin that twist and snap in the wind. More than a week after leaders of an obscure indigenous Christian cult led, or perhaps forced, their followers into the building, poured gasoline around and then set, or had their followers set, fire to the place, the site has become a macabre graveyard. Police bulldozed the building and its grisly contents--at least 330, and perhaps as many as 550, charred corpses--into...

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