Three arrested for cemetery gang-rape

Daily Voice

Stock photo: While a manhunt is on for the kidnappers of several woman, one of victims says she was too afraid to raise the alarm.

KwaZulu-Natal - Three men were arrested on Monday for allegedly gang-raping a woman at a cemetery in Pongola, in northern KwaZulu-Natal.

The suspects, aged between 26 and 33, were among seven men who allegedly raped the 38-year-old woman, as she made her way home at about 10pm on Saturday.

The other four are still on the run.

Provincial police spokesman, Captain Thulani Zwane, said the men had accosted the woman in the Lahlampondo area.

She apparently knew one of them. Zwane said the woman was allegedly forced into the cemetery where they took turns raping her.

“It is alleged that the suspect, who was known to her, had then booted her all over her body and she sustained multiple bruising,” he said.

Zwane said detectives were confident that the four suspects would be arrested soon.

KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner, Lieutenant-General Mmamonnye Ngobeni, commended the detectives for the quick arrests and called on them to use all available resources to track down the others as soon as possible.

“We are continually educating our communities through crime awareness campaigns of the evils of crime and its negative impact on individuals’ lives and society as a whole,” Ngobeni said.

“Rape is an abhorrent act that leaves the victim psychologically scarred for life, over and above the physical pain and suffering he or she is forced to endure.”

Ngobeni said it was especially shocking that the perpetrators had chosen Women’s Month to take advantage of a defenceless woman in a most brutal way to satisfy their lust.

“We add our voices to those of the women’s rights organisations in calling for harsher sentences of convicted rapists,” she said. “We must purge society of these monsters who prey on the vulnerable.” - Daily News

mpume.madlala@inl.co.za