Rael Ombuor
Warning: This story contains graphic content
Nairobi: Elizabeth Mokolo Moselakgomo, 38, went for an afternoon run on September 9. She never made it home.
Her body was discovered three days later, half naked and bruised, sparking outrage in South Africa – a country that grapples with one of the highest recorded rates of violence against women, according to the South African Medical Research Council.
Moselakgomo’s body was the fifth to be discovered in an apparent series of killings: the bodies of eight other women have been discovered over the past two months in eastern Gauteng Province, near Johannesburg, sparking fears that a serial killer could be responsible.
The ninth body was found on Thursday (Johannesburg time) in the town of Dawn Park, some 32 kilometres north of Kempton Park, where five other bodies – including Moselakgomo’s – were discovered.
The women were aged 20 to 38. Other bodies were discovered in the Olifantsfontein and Kwa-Thema areas, both about 32km from where Moselakgomo’s body and the other four were found.
Police said most of the bodies were bruised, partially or entirely undressed, and eight showed signs of sexual assault.
At least one of the women’s throats had been slit, acting Gauteng police commissioner Fred Kekana told reporters.
Police arrested a suspect in connection with the discovery of the first woman’s body on July 15 in Kempton Park. The woman, 37, was found half naked with bruises on her body and tied up with cables.
Police have not released further information about the suspect, including whether he could be connected to the other deaths, saying only that he was a foreigner.
On Thursday, demonstrators – mostly women – in the Ekurhuleni district where the bodies were found, marched in the streets, donning black. Some held placards calling for an end to femicide.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement that law enforcement agencies were investigating the deaths, and that there would be “no stone left unturned”.
While serial killings are unusual, the apparent spate of slayings has sparked a broader conversation about violence against women in South Africa.
In 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic, Ramaphosa referred to the killing of women and children by men as “another pandemic that is raging in our country”.
Research published last year by South Africa’s parliamentary research unit showed that at least 33 per cent of women older than 18 had experienced physical violence.
The report cites statistics released by South African police indicating that out of 39,304 reported incidents of sexual offences between April and December 2024, 31,303 were cases of rape.
South Africa has one of the leading rates of femicide in the world. Women in South Africa are killed at a rate five times higher than the global average, according to UN Women. In November 2025, South Africa declared gender-based violence and femicide a national disaster.
“South Africa has lived with persistently high levels of femicide for many years. What the discovery of these bodies has done is make that continuing emergency brutally visible,” said Mpiwa Mangwiro, the policy development and advocacy manager at Sonke Gender Justice, a rights group based in South Africa.
“Government responses also remain highly reactive,” she said.
“We mobilise task teams, additional police and public statements after women’s bodies have been found. Prevention requires us to respond to warning signs before a woman is killed.”
While the single suspect’s nationality remains unknown, word from police that he was a foreign national spread fear on social media that the case could spark anti-immigrant backlash.
Anti-immigrant marches and vigilante groups have driven a wave of social upheaval in South Africa this year, often blaming foreign migrants for the country’s high crime rate.
The Washington Post
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