TWO men kidnapped and gang-raped a four-year-old girl in Harare’s Avondale West area Friday in what police suspect may have been a ritual attack.

Harare provincial police spokesperson, Inspector James Sabau said the incident occurred at about 2AM adding the girl was later found by a neighbour abandoned and crying a kilometer away from her home.

"According to the girl's father, he retired to bed with his wife and the victim at around 9PM. The couple was sleeping on the bed while the girl was on a sofa in the same room," Inspector Sabau told the Herald newspaper.

Relatives said the girl and a five-year-old cousin sister had been sharing a sofa while her mother and father slept on the bed in the same room.

The cousin is said to have slipped off the sofa and got lodged underneath the bed which probably saved her from being attacked as well.

"My daughter is reported to have slipped from the sofa and went under the bed, leaving the victim alone,” the cousin’s father said.

The relatives said they suspect the rapists gained entry into the room through a window which had no burglar bars but it remains unclear how they managed to snatch the little girl unnoticed.

A woman who lives in the same neighbourhood later found the girl abandoned and crying about a kilometre away from her home. She then took her to her parents who discovered, to their horror, that she had been raped.

The girl told her parents that two people had carried her over the security wall and that they stuffed papers in her mouth to prevent her from screaming. They took her to a cabin at a house along Sherwood Drive and took turns to rape her.

Police have launched a man hunt for the suspects and appealed to members of the public for information that could assist in apprehending them.

There has been an increase in incidences of children disappearing with some turning up mutilated in what are believed to be ritual practices that people perform either to attain wealth or to ‘cure’ diseases like HIV and AIDS.