Brazil Gang-Rape Victim Is US Student

The woman who was raped on a Rio de Janeiro minibus is an American student who was studying in Rio, a French consular source tells AFP. The US Embassy and State Department have also confirmed the female victim is a US citizen, reports CNN. More details are emerging: The 21-year-old woman and her 23-year-old male companion, a French student, got on the minibus in the Copacabana beach district around midnight on Saturday. Police say three men boarded later, made the other passengers get off, then raped the woman and beat the man during the six-hour ordeal.

They were eventually discarded in a city more than 30 miles away, the woman with a broken nose and the man with a fractured face and eye hemorrhage. Two men, Jonathan Foudakis de Souza, 20, and Wallace Aparecido Souza Silva, 22, were arrested right away; a third suspect was detained last night. A Brazilian woman who was also raped on a minibus a week prior to this attack saw the photos of the first two men detained and identified them as the men who raped her. (More Brazil stories.)