‘Women are terrified’: Ninth body found as South African police probe series of killings

(CNN) — The body of a ninth woman has been found in the space of just two months in an area east of South Africa’s largest city, stoking fears in a country already facing dire levels of violence against women.

The latest body was found Thursday morning in Dawn Park, Ekurhuleni, a region of Johannesburg.

Some of the cases have similarities, but investigators do not yet know whether all nine deaths are linked or whether a serial killer could be involved.

“Women are terrified,” Sabrina Walter, founder of Women For Change, a South African nonprofit that campaigns against gender-based violence and femicide, told CNN.

“Women here have been changing how we live for years just to survive,” she said. “What is happening in Ekurhuleni has intensified that fear.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa has said the killings are causing “fear and uncertainty,” particularly among women. He said he had instructed police to prioritize the cases and leave “no stone unturned” in bringing those responsible to justice.

Police have increased patrols and put more officers on the ground in affected areas.

Are the killings connected?

South Africa has confronted serial killings of women before. In the 1990s, Moses Sithole was arrested after a string of killings in Gauteng that left at least 37 women and one child dead, including 15 women whose remains were found in Cleveland, east of Johannesburg.

As investigators work to establish what happened, police have advised women in and around Kempton Park, where several of the bodies were found, to avoid running or walking alone in isolated areas and to go out in groups where possible.

Police said the advice was a precaution while investigations continued and was not intended to restrict women’s freedom.

But the warning has frustrated women who say they are already changing how they live to protect themselves.

“Women are tired of being told to be more vigilant. We are already vigilant,” Walter said.

Lebogang Kgari, a finance manager, is among those who have changed their routines.

One of the women killed, Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo, 38, disappeared after going out for a run earlier this month. Her body was found days later.

Kgari did not know Moselakgomo personally, but she knows runners who did. Her death, she says, has made an already frightening series of killings feel even closer.

“The recent killings have made me feel unsafe, anxious and highly terrified to go on runs as per my normal routine,” Kgari told CNN. Running, she said, has instead become “triggering.”

Kgari now limits her runs to the gated estate where she lives and sometimes cuts them short. She says running with other people is not always practical because her mornings have to fit around work and getting her child ready for school.

A wider femicide crisis

Naeemah Abrahams, a leading femicide researcher at the South African Medical Research Council, says the Ekurhuleni cases are drawing attention to a problem that plays out across the country, often with far less public notice.

A 2024 national study by the South African Medical Research Council estimated that nearly seven women were killed every day in South Africa in 2020/21. It found that 60% were killed by an intimate partner and that South Africa’s intimate-partner femicide rate was five times the global rate.

“It tells us that femicide in South Africa is very likely not decreasing,” Abrahams told CNN. “Whatever interventions we have, they are not effective. Or the interventions we have are inadequate.”

Abrahams says every killing of a woman should trigger a serious investigation — not only cases that become part of a cluster.

“When a second body is found, then this must be a red flag,” Abrahams said, calling for specially trained investigators to handle such cases.

But Abrahams says the responsibility for preventing violence should not fall on women having to change how they live.

“It is very unfair to always ask women to change their behavior in order to protect themselves,” she said. “It’s men’s behavior that must change.”

In November 2025, authorities formally classified gender-based violence and femicide as a national disaster, requiring a coordinated government response.

But campaigners and researchers say the declaration must now lead to action.

Walter says South Africa already has laws and policies to tackle the crisis, but they need to be put into practice.

“Women cannot survive on declarations,” Walter said. “We need budgets. We need implementation. We need functioning institutions. We need prevention. We need accountability.”

For Kgari, the fear has changed something as ordinary as going for a morning run.

Some days, she puts on her running shoes but never makes it outside.

“The treadmill at the gym… is safer,” she said.

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