A suspected rapist was “with a severely injured private part” after his pregnant victim bit his penis as she was sexually assaulted in front of her child, police in South Africa said as they launched a manhunt for him.

Investigators urged hospitals in the country to contact police if they had treated anyone with wounds to their genitals.

The woman was raped at knifepoint on 8 January after she accepted a lift from two men in order to get to a clinic in the eastern Mpumalanga province, along with her five-year-old child.

The men then threatened the woman at gunpoint, warning her not to scream, police said in a statement, adding that the men were driving a white Toyota Tazz near the town of White River.

She was then driven into bushes at a nearby plantation, where she was raped, the statement continued.

After biting her rapist’s penis, both men ran away, leaving mother and child alone in the bushes, Brigadier Leonard Hlathi told The Independent.

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“We are still hunting him,” he added, when asked if a suspect had been identified.

Sexual assault remains a huge problem in South Africa, with 39,828 reports of rape recorded in 2016-17, according to fact-checking organisation Africa Check.