Two white men face assault charges after a video hit social media showing a black man being forced into a coffin.

Two white men in South Africa have been charged with assault after an online video emerged showing them pushing a black man into a coffin and threatening to burn him alive.

The pair are to appear in court on Wednesday in the northeastern town of Middelburg charged with assault and intent to cause grievous bodily harm, a court clerk said on Tuesday.

The footage was apparently shot on a mobile phone by one of the two white men involved in the incident.

The video caused outrage on social media with hundreds of South Africans condemning the white men’s behaviour under the hash tag #coffinAlive.

The 20-second clip shows one white man shoving the black man, who makes distressed noises, into the wooden coffin and trying to force down the lid.

“Do you want to speak? Come, come. We want to throw the petrol on,” said one of the men, speaking Afrikaans.

They are also accused of threatening to put a snake in the coffin.

The video, which is undated, has spread rapidly across social media.

It was allegedly taken at a farm close to Middelburg town in Mpumalanga.

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The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) opposition party said it would rally outside Middelburg magistrates’ court on Wednesday to protest against the alleged assault and racism in South Africa.

The EEF named the suspects as Willem Oosthuizen and Theo Martins Jackson, and the victim as Victor Rethabile Mlotshwa.

Press Alert: EFF Leadership Will Attend the Court Case of White Men who Assaulted a Black Man & Put Him in a Coffin https://t.co/8xPEUWngYx — Economic Freedom Fighters (@EFFSouthAfrica) November 14, 2016

“The two white men … beat up a black man, Victor Rethabile Mlotshwa, and put him in a coffin,” the EFF said in a statement .

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“These white racists then took a video and put it up on social media for amusement. This humiliation can be based on nothing else but his blackness, which means it is in actual fact a humiliation of black people as a whole.”

Racial controversies have erupted regularly on social media in recent years in South Africa, which is still beset by deep-rooted inequality 22 years after the end of white-minority apartheid rule.

#coffinalive It hurts me that in today's times in SA one human can treat another human being in such an inhumane manner. This is so sick! — ℚ𝕒𝕣𝕚 ℤ𝕚𝕪𝕒𝕒𝕕 ℙ𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕝 (@QariZiyaadPatel) November 15, 2016

After seeing that #CoffinAlive vid I realised that inhumanity is rooted on some people. — Ted Halenyane (@Ted_Seleka) November 15, 2016



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