Two Christian nurses in Pakistan have gone into hiding after being falsely accused of blaspheming the Qur’an.

Speaking to Aid to the Church in Need, Mariam Lal, 54, and Newosh Arooj, aged 21, said “If we showed our faces in public, we could easily be targeted, lynched even. We can’t stay in one location. We have to keep on the move for our own security. The person who succeeds in killing us knows they would be hailed as a hero.”

The pair were on duty as nurses on a psychiatric ward at Civil Hospital, a government establishment in Faisalabad when a patient handed them part of a sticker which she had torn off a medicine cabinet. The sticker included a verse from the Qur’an. The next morning, a mob descended on them, accusing them of blasphemy, but the two nurses were lucky to escape with their lives.

They were however officially charged with desecration of the Qur’an, which carries life imprisonment, and have had their lives on hold for two years while the case rumbles on.

Research shows that a disproportionately high number of blasphemy cases in Pakistan involve Christians, even though they make up less than two per cent of the population.