At least 40 men have gang raped a 15-year-old girl over a period of 8 months in a small village on an island in Thailand while her parents were away.

According to the Dailymail, the girl whose name has been withheld says up to 40 men had sexually abused her over eight months in 2016, taking advantage of her parents working nights to abduct her from her home and drug her before gang-raping her.

The girl’s revelation has taken aback the small village of about 100 dwellers on Ban Koh Raed in Phang Nga Bay, southwest Thailand.

Reports suggest that the girl had her first experience of the barbaric act at age 14 in May last year, when an unknown man broke into the family home and raped her while the parents were out tapping trees for rubber sap.

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Her 39-year-old mother reportedly told The National that, “because I and my husband work as rubber tappers, we must leave our children alone between midnight and dawn.”She further told police that, the same man returned a few nights later in the company of a second assailant and gang raped her daughter.

As the assailants apparently enjoyed the dastardly act, the assaults surged in the subsequent months as the men constantly came to the family home and force her to go to beach huts with them where they drugged her and let other men abuse her.

Meanwhile, a governing official in Tambon Loryoong, Yuttanakorn Juanjenkij told Malaysian Digest that, police said they have identified 11 of the alleged attackers, saying “Local residents are ready to cooperate with police.”

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Yuttanakorn Juanjenkij added that “Think about children who live in the village. They feel stress as such a claim means their fathers may be suspects.”

“Local residents here are generally close. It is really hard for them to believe such a large-scale crime could have happened in their neighbourhood.”

Though the rape victim said her attackers were not members of the village suspicion is rife that the high number of assailants could mean that most residents are directly related to a man she has accused of rape.

The parents of the girl have fled the village claiming they are not safe on the island following threats from other villagers.