A court in Senegal has handed down a two-year suspended prison sentence to the head of a Koranic school for chaining up children.

Serigne Khadim Gueye was convicted along with four parents and the metalworker who made the chains.

They were arrested last month after a photo shared on social media showed several children in the northern town of Ndiagne with chains around their feet.

The case has split opinion in the Muslim-majority nation, where many thousands of children attend Koranic schools.

Some parents argued that they didn’t know chaining a child was illegal.

There have been similar cases of horrific abuse in Nigeria, where the government has responded by shutting down some of the schools.