Huge rats the size of a cat have killed and eaten babies in two separate attacks this week.

The attacks happened in slums near Johannesburg and Cape Town of South Africa.

A three-year-old girl from the Khayelitsha slum was killed by the giant rat as she slept. Nobody heard a sound, until her 27-year-old mother discovered her daughter -with her eyes gouged out. She was apparently eat from her eyebrows to her cheeks.

In a separate attack, a baby girl from Soweto town was attacked by giant rats. Her teenager mother, who had been out with friends, was arrested on charges of culpable homicide and negligence.

The suspected species of the attacks are believed to be the African Giant Pouched Rats, a species native to sub-Saharan Africa. They are the biggest rats in the world and can grow up to three feet long. Its front teeth can grow over one inch long, and they are nocturnal omnivores, capable of productin up to 50 young per year.

The giant rats thrive in squalid towns.

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