A woman who was buried alive at a cemetery in Brazil has been rescued after being trapped for more than 10 hours inside a tomb.
Two men have been arrested after a 36-year-old woman was found entombed at the Visconde do Rio Branco Municipal Cemetery in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.
The victim is currently in intensive care and may need her finger amputated, hospital staff have indicated.
The mother-of-four was beaten and dragged from her home on 28 March before she was abandoned her at the burial site, police said.
The victim managed to survive underground for 10 hours before gravediggers noticed fresh cement and blood near the grave.
After hearing a woman’s voice crying for help, they immediately called the police.
The Visconde do Rio Branco Civil Police confirmed the arrests, which took place on Saturday night in the municipalities of São Geraldo and Viçosa, during a press conference on Tuesday.
The defendants, who have not been named, were planning to escape after abandoning the woman’s body at the cemetery, police chief Diego Candian said.
The men, aged 20 and 22, had previously been arrested on weapons and drug trafficking charges. They will be held in pre-trial detention for up to 30 days.
The woman said she had been attacked after she “misplaced” drugs and weapons she was storing for them at her home.
Police said they were searching for a third suspect in connection with the crime.
“There is still an individual who is on the run,” police chief Douglas Moto said. “We are still working incessantly to be able to locate this individual and as soon as possible make the arrest and then, leave them at the disposal of the justice.”
When the suspects forced entry into her home last month, they also attacked her husband, who managed to escape.
The assailants then dragged her from the house, took her to the cemetery and bundled her body inside the tomb.
The woman said noticed she was trapped inside after she had regained consciousness.
Emergency rescuers pulled her from the burial chamber after the gravediggers who discovered her called police.
The woman suffered a head injury and is at risk of losing one of her fingers, João Batista Hospital director Henrique Slaid told Brazilian news outlet G1.
“The possibility of vascular surgery is being evaluated and perhaps amputation,” said Slaid, while adding that the victim is in intensive care and improving but that she may undergo vascular surgery.
