A Nigerian groom and his three friends were killed when a child bride who had been forced into marriage poisoned them with a meal, police said Thursday, the Associated Press reported.
Wasila Umaru, 14, was forcibly married against her wishes to 35-year-old Umaru Sani last week, according to assistant superintendent Musa Magaji Majia.
A dozen friends were invited over the weekend to celebrate with the groom at his Ungwar Yansoro village, about 60 miles from the northern city of Kano.
Rat poison, which was purchased at a village market, was used by the teenager while preparing a dish of rice, she told police.
"The suspect confessed to committing the crime and said she did it because she was forced to marry a man she did not love," Majia told the AP.
While a friend and Sani were killed the same day, the other two victims died later in the hospital, according to the AP.
Likely to be charged with culpable homicide, Umaru is cooperating with the police, according to Majia.
"Child marriage is common in Nigeria and especially in the mainly Muslim and impoverished north, where the numbers increase in times of drought because a bride price is paid and it means one less mouth to feed," the AP reported. "Fifty percent of Nigerian girls living in rural areas are married before they turn 18, according to the U.N. children's agency. That's a lot of child brides in a country of some 170 million people of whom half are under 18."
The AP continued, "Child brides often suffer difficult pregnancies - the leading cause of death worldwide for girls aged 15 to 19 - and are much more likely to contract AIDS and be subjected to domestic violence, according to the International Center for Research on Women."
The U.N. labor organization considers early and forced marriage to be the same as modern-day slavery.
Even though getting married before the age of 18 is prohibited by Nigeria's Child Rights Act, it often competes with Islamic Shariah law that holds in most northern states.
