Sifiso Makhubo, aged 42 known to be South Africa’s worst known rapist has been found dead in his prison cell hours before he was to go to trial.
Sifiso was facing a total of 122 charges for murder, rape, sexually assaulting 34 children, kidnapping, robbery and attempted murder by infecting his victims with HIV/AIDS. He was found hanging from his blanket in his prison cell.
Investigations are currently going on concerning the circumstances around his death. The horrific nature of the crimes committed by Sifisi Makhubo shocked South Africa, a country accustomed to some of the world’s highest levels of sexual violence.
It has been recorded that in April 2012, more than 64,000 sexual offences, including rape, have been reported in South Africa. Of these, more than 25,000 were assaults on children.
South Africa in 2010 reported over a hundred cases of rape per 100,00 people, by far the highest among countries that reported statistics to the United Nations compared to the 27.3 in the United States as the frequency of rape cases differs from country to country.