Call on Sudan to pardon teen:

South African Police Minister Bheki Cele (right), is greeted by Moulana Sayed Afthab Haider, the national co-ordinator of the Ahlul Bait Foundation of South Africa, an umbrella body that oversees Shiite mosques, as he visits the Shiite Muslim Imam Hussain

Mosque in Verulam on the outskirts of Durban on May 13. (AFP)

The United Nations and international rights groups have called on Sudan to pardon a 19-year-old girl sentenced to death after she killed her husband as he tried to rape her, saying that she is a victim of child marriage and acted in self-defence.

Noura Hussein is facing death by hanging after a Sharia court, which follows Islamic religious laws, found her guilty of premeditated murder for stabbing her husband as he raped her in April. On Thursday, the court sentenced her to death.

The UN Women, UN Population Fund and UN Office of the Special Advisor on Africa on Sunday appealed to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s government for clemency for Hussein.

“Reports indicate that she was forced against her will into marriage at the age of 16. She was raped by her husband while his three male relatives held her down,” said a joint statement. (RTRS)