By NORMA SIAME  –

A RAPIST has been arrested from a hospital bed at Mansa General Hospital where he went to seek treatment after part of his tongue was bitten off by a gang-rape victim.
Three men related to a 20-year-old rape victim’s husband took turns on her during the week.
Mansa District One Stop Centre for Gender-Based-Violence coordinator Chimba Chimba and police in Mansa confirmed the incident in separate interviews.
The woman from Namwandwe area narrated the ordeal during a family gathering to explain her complications with her estranged husband.
In a complaint filed at the GBV centre, the woman said three men met her when heading home from a drinking engagement.
“They stopped me, calling me mulamu, mulamu (sister-in-law) and offered to escort me but along the way they forced me to a nearby sand-pit, where they took turns to rape me,” she stated.
She said the third attacker attempted to kiss her and she bit off part of his tongue.
The victim said she was left naked at the crime scene and only gained conscious in the early hours the following day.
She was later assisted by the staff from the GBV centre to seek treatment at Mansa General Hospital as per standard procedure for rape victims, where she was notified that one of her assailants was admitted to the same hospital.
The suspect was arrested after the GBV staff alerted police.
The suspect had a slurred speech induced by the injury but after hospital staff attended to him said the patient claimed the injury had been inflicted by a friend during a brawl.
Police are looking for the other two suspects.
Meanwhile, three inmates from Luwingu State Prison are on the run after escaping from the facility.
The trio was part of a working party sent to harvest maize at a Zambia Prisons Service farm. They escaped on Thursday morning.
Prison authorities and the police have launched a manhunt.
The three were identified as Derick Kalenga, Cephas Bwalya and Reagan Musonda serving sentences for stock theft and breaking into a building and committing a felony.
Northern Province Commissioner of Police Alfred Nawa confirmed the incident in an interview yesterday.
Mr Nawa appealed to members of the surrounding communities to report any suspicious-looking people.
They were last seen wearing standard issue prison grab of orange jumpsuits.