Medics say there is nothing they can do to help a man whose penis was cut off together with his testicles to punish him for getting drunk and trying to rape his niece because they were apparently eaten by wild pigs.

The boozed-up man, aged 36, who was not named, lived in the regional municipality of Olhos D’Agua, which is 400 kilometres (248 miles) from the city of Belo Horizonte, in the south-eastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.

He caused widespread anger after getting drunk and allegedly attempting to have sex with his niece, who has not been named, who managed to fight off his advances and fled before he then staggered home and went to sleep.

The police were apparently not called to the incident but the 20-year-old woman’s boyfriend and his cousin were angered and determined to get revenge.

They asked him if he could join them in a nearby sugarcane field where they planned to neuter some pigs.

When the man turned up, the two men attacked him instead, and after beating him unconscious, they removed his trousers and cut off his penis and testicles.

When he came round, he realised what had happened and managed to struggle home where he raised the alarm and shocked medics who arrived were able to stop the bleeding and save his life.

He was taken by ambulance to the Doutor Gil Alves Municipal Hospital in Bocaiuva, 50 kilometres (31 miles) from Olhos D’Agua.

Surgeons then struggled to at least reconstruct his urinary tract, so that the man could relieve himself, but they say there is no hope of replacing anything that he lost after it was apparently thrown to the pigs and eaten.

According to police officer Michael Stephan da Silva, the force searched for the missing organ but did not find it and believed it had indeed been eaten by the animals.

Surgeon Felipe Lobo said: “It was like something out of a scene from a Dante novel. His penis and scrotum had been severed and his external genitalia were completely missing. All we could do was stem the bleeding, give him a blood transfusion and clean the wound.”

The man is now on antibiotics and will be able to leave the hospital in two to four days.

The two suspects have been arrested. It is unclear if the man whose genitals were removed is to be charged with attempted rape.