Warning: This article discusses rape
The filming of a music video in South Africa took a horrific turn when the models for the video were ambushed and gang-raped by a group of 80 men.
On July 28 eight models were gang-raped at gunpoint during a gospel music video shoot in Krugersdorp, a small town near Johannesburg.
One of the young women who helped organise the models for the video said three men in balaclavas raped her as she tried to protect the other women from being attacked.
"I was blaming myself, thinking that if it hadn’t been for me, these girls wouldn’t be there. I felt responsible and I wanted to take all the pain so that they wouldn’t touch the girls," she told the Sunday Times.
The woman said the men raped her in a bush first and then took her to a ditch where they couldn't be seen and raped her again.
According to the Sunday Times, the film crew was shooting a music video when a gang of illegal miners, dressed in Basotho blankets, stormed the scene, firing guns and when the models tried to escape, they were encircled and raped one by one.
One of the young women who was only 19 said she told her attacker she had suffered a miscarriage to prevent them from attacking her.
"I had no way out but to lie because they were picking us up one by one. There were others who were raped by six to 10 men," she said.
The woman's 21-year-old sister was also raped in a ditch and said the ordeal lasted four hours.
People posted on Twitter in solidarity with the survivors and rallied together outside the Krugesdorp Court.
One user tweeted: "Earlier today at the Krugersdorp Magistrates Court, ActionSA Councillors protested and stood in solidarity with the 8 victims of rape. Enough is enough! It's time for the government to do something."
Another tweeted: "Our Women are not objects to be messed with by animals to be raped or killed.....today we went to picket outside Krugersdorp Magistrate court for justice to be served on rapists and killers of our people."
According to the Sunday Times, more than 80 suspects have been arrested in the past 24 hours in Krugersdorp’s West Village area and they are being held for contravening the Immigration Act.
