Inhuman' Islamists Stone Couple to Death After Accusing Them of Having Children Outside of Marriage

The situation in the West African nation of Mali has declined in recent months. In May, TheBlaze first told you about the Islamist invasion that has now led to a deadly stronghold. Traditional music, alcohol and unveiled women have all been banned and reports of citizens being attacked by radicals are regularly streaming out of the region.

On Tuesday, another disturbing example of the fallout that has come from Islamist domination made headlines, as a couple was reportedly stoned to death. Their offense? Being suspected of having children together out of wedlock.

In the small town of Aguelhok, several hundred individuals allegedly witnessed the death of the man and woman at the hands of radical Muslims. The account of what happened, as told in The New York Times, is monumentally disturbing.

An official told sources that bearded Islamists armed with knives forced the man and woman into holes that were four feet deep. With only their heads sticking out, they were stoned to death around 5 a.m.

(Related: Islamists Attack & Try to Destroy Historical Tombs & Protected Sites in Timbuktu)

"They put them into the holes, and then they started throwing big rocks, until they were dead," the official said. "It was horrible. It was inhuman. They killed them like they were animals."

The official, who wished to remain nameless for safety's sake, claims that 2,000 people have already fled -- some into Algeria -- as a result of the attack. Some in the town apparently testified, prior to the violent executions, that the children that the couple was accused of parenting weren't biologically theirs. Still, the violent executions were carried out.

"All they said was, it was the law of Shariah that prescribed it, that God willed it," the unnamed official recalled.

The New York Times further explains the current situation that exists in the region:

All of northern Mali, a vast area larger than France, most of it desert, is in the hands of Islamists linked to Al Qaeda, after a rebellion against the Malian government that began in January. The rebellion began as a new iteration of a decades-long struggle by a nomadic ethnic group, the Tuaregs, to gain autonomy from a central government based in the south that it had long accused of neglect and persecution.

But the Tuaregs were soon overtaken by their de facto allies, a local Islamist movement, the Ansar Dine, or Defenders of the Faith, which itself was allied with Al Qaeda. Ansar Dine now controls the region, in alliance with another radical Islamist splinter group, the Mujao, or the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa. The groups share the goal of imposing an extreme form of Shariah law on the people of northern Mali.

So, sadly, it seems as though violence is now dominating the lives of those residing in the region.

(H/T: The New York Times)