A mob of students from a university in northwestern Nigeria beat and burned to death a classmate for allegedly blasphemous statements about Muhammad this Thursday, a witness confirmed to Efe today.
“She was accused of posting a message insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad in a WhatsApp group,” a university student who requested anonymity told Efe.
“(Her attackers) were particularly angry because she was a Christian. They dragged her out of the security post where she was hiding, beat her and burned her,” added this student.
The incident occurred at Shehu Shagarim University in the city of Sokoto, capital of the state of the same name.
The attackers celebrated the death of their victim, identified as Deborah Samuel, according to this source.
The video of the attack is viral in Nigeria, causing strong outrage among the population.
In a statement, Sokoto State Police spokesman Sanusi Abubakar said two students have been arrested.
For his part, the Sultan of Sokoto, religious leader of the Muslim ummah community in Nigeria, Alhaji Saad Abubakar, condemned this murder and urged the authorities to ensure that the perpetrators face justice.
In 2016, a woman -Bridget Agbahime- was murdered in a market in the city of Kano, also in northern Nigeria, for another alleged blasphemy against Muhammad.
Also in 2020, a Kano state sharia court sentenced a man, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, to death for allegedly profanity in a song circulated through the WhatsApp instant messaging application.
Although there are no official figures, a report by the Pew Research Center estimated that about 49% of the population of Nigeria is Muslim, with a similar percentage of Christians.
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