No fewer than 16 people were left dead at a Seventh Day Adventist church in Rwanda as lightning struck the church leaving about 140 Worshippers wounded.
According to a report published by Thisday, a newspaper in Nigeria, the local mayor Habitegeko Francois confirmed that most of the victims died instantly. The weather accident in the mountainous region near the border with Burundi took place around midday on Saturday while parishioners of the town of Gihemvu were at a church service.
This came barely 24 hours after another lightning struck a group of 18 students, killing one. Three of the students remain in hospital while the rest have been able to return home, reports say. Last October, lightning killed 18 people in different parts of the country. According to ABC News, Rwanda’s Ministry of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs stated that lightning has killed 30 people, injured 61 and killed 48 livestock in 2016.
Lightning strikes are frequent across Rwanda, which has many hills and mountains, and the country’s police record a number of human and livestock deaths each year. The church incident comes less than two weeks after the closure of more than 700 Rwandan churches for failing to comply with building regulations and for noise pollution. Local news outlet Panor Actu reported that a number of the closed churches did not have required lightning rods – devices intended to protect a structure from a lightning strike.
“Some churches conduct their worship services in shoddy and unclean structures, to the detriment of people’s health and safety,” said Anastase Shyaka, head of the Rwanda Governance Board, which monitors public and private organisations. Most of the churches that were closed are small, with congregations of hundreds of worshippers. Furthermore, Rwanda is also preparing a new law on the operations of faith-based organisations, which is likely to make it harder for new churches to be created. The reason, government says, is that some preachers “deceive their congregation with misleading sermons.” When the law is passed later this year, preachers will be required to undertake theology courses.
The closure of the churches has not really gone down with some people. According to www.therwandan.com, Paul Kagame has come under attack with some quarters saying the real reason why he approved the closure of the churches was not because some of the churches lacked hygiene but for fear of freedom of speech, as he controls the media, political parties and civil society at large.
