Police investigating a spate of ritualistic kidnappings and sex attacks on male hitchhikers have arrested three women in Zimbabwe

Detectives in Gweru, Zimbabwe, seized 33 used condoms from a suspect vehicle following reports of attacks on men seeking lifts in the town, as well as Harare and Mashonaland West. Reports in Zimbabwe have described the alarming trend of male hitchhikers being offered lifts, but then being drugged and driven to secluded spots by female attackers. The men are then forced into sex with the women, sometimes unprotected and at gunpoint, before the female rapists collect their semen and dump victims by the roadside. Three women have been arrested after police found 33 condoms in a vehicle in Lower Gweru. Midlands police chief Senior Assistant Commissioner Charles Makono said the women came under suspicion after asking officers if they could retrieve the bag of condoms from their car, which had just been involved in an accident. The three women, named as Rosemary Chakwizira, 24, Sophie Nhokwara, 26, and Netsai Nhokwara, 24, all from Mkoba 4, Gweru, were immediately arrested along with the male driver on suspicion of multiple counts of indecent assault. The driver also faces culpable homicide charges after the fatal accident in which a pedestrian was run over and killed. The local police station in Gweru was besieged by an angry mob who wanted to see the arrested trio.