A 25-year-old Christian student in Nigeria’s Sokoto State was beaten to death Thursday by her classmates after they reportedly found what they considered to be a blasphemous message she sent to a school WhatsApp group.
According to the Christian watchdog organization International Christian Concern (ICC), the body of Deborah Emmanuel was also burned by students at the Shehu Shagari College of Education.
Emmanuel recently got into an argument with female classmates after sending the message which was interpreted as blasphemous, ICC reports.
The young woman attended Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) church and lived with her parents in Sokoto.
A video of Emmanuel being beaten went viral on local social media channels. The footage shows her lying still on the ground as male and female students beat her with sticks, threw stones at her while yelling, “Allahu Akbar.”
Sadly, she pleaded with the attackers not to kill her.
A student from the school told ICC that “Muslim students and teachers don’t like Christians in the school.”
It was reported that school authorities unsuccessfully tried to stop the Muslim students from killing Emmanuel.
Additionally, Muslim students have blocked the road to the school and Emmanuel’s house, making it difficult for Christians to move around.
The governor of the state requested that the school close in the wake of the tragic event, even though no arrests have been made.
As CBN News has reported for the last several years, Nigeria is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a Christian.
Persecution in Nigeria is brutally violent, with many Christians living under the constant threat of attack from the radical Islamic group Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), Fulani militants, and criminals who kidnap and murder with few consequences.
The nation ranks seventh on Open Doors USA’s 2022 World Watch List, with the organization calling the persecution in Nigeria “brutally violent.”
The remainder of this article is available in its entirety at CBN