SOUTH AFRICA: Enraged South Africa Rapists Kill HIV-Positive Victim

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

SOUTH AFRICA: Enraged South Africa Rapists Kill HIV-Positive Victim

Reuters (12.21.03) - Monday, December 22, 2003

On Sunday, officials said they had arrested two men charged with gang-raping an HIV/AIDS activist and kicking her to death after she told them she was HIV-positive. Inspector Lunga Ntsinde said police were still looking for another suspect in last week's murder of 21-year-old Lorna Mlosana, who was raped in the bathroom of a Cape Town area bar on Dec. 14. Her assailants then allegedly took her outside and kicked her to death.

Mlosana was a training volunteer with the Treatment Action Group. Zackie Achmat, who was recently nominated, along with TAC, for a Nobel Peace Prize for promoting HIV/AIDS awareness in South Africa, said the group would hold a protest Monday to express its outrage over the attack.

"It's a criminal element and we are going to make sure they get prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," Achmat said.

HIV activists - who recently persuaded the government to begin distributing antiretrovirals to those in need - say the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS is hobbling efforts to fight the disease, which infects 5 million of South Africa's 45 million people.

Gugu Dlamini, one of the first South Africans to go public with her HIV-positive status, was killed by a mob including her own neighbors in 1998.
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