A 20-year-old woman was beaten to death by her brothers in South Sudan on Friday after she refused an arranged marriage set up by her parents.

Nyaluk Magorok was killed in the town of Yirol, in Eastern Lakes state, for reportedly turning down the proposal from her parents' preferred suitor.

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The man had reportedly offered the family 40 cows as a dowry - or conditional gift - ahead of the marriage.

Taban Abel, Minister of Information in Eastern Lakes, told South Sudan's Radio Tamazuj that the young woman was disciplined by her brothers on the orders of her father.

Nyaluk's killing comes just months after the practice of forced marriage in Eastern Lakes state was thrown into the spotlight following the auction of a 17-year-old girl, which resulted in a man three times her age paying the country's largest-ever dowry.

The man beat at least four other competitors with a winning bid of 500 cows, two luxury cars, $10,000, two bikes, a boat and a few cell phones. Among the bidders was the state's deputy governor.

The auction went viral and led to international outrage after it was pointed out on Facebook. The 17-year-old became the highest bidder's ninth wife.

'She has been reduced to a mere commodity,' Philips Anyang Ngong, a human rights lawyer who tried to stop the bidding said at the time, calling it 'the biggest test of child abuse, trafficking and auctioning of a human being.'

Everyone involved should be held accountable, he said.

Credits: Daily Mail