Ten women have been found dead in similar circumstances around Johannesburg since July, deepening South Africa’s crisis of violence against women.
Police in South Africa have recovered the body of a woman at a cemetery in Tembisa, a township north-east of central Johannesburg, raising to ten the number of women found dead in similar circumstances in the area since July.
The body was discovered on Saturday morning. Officers have not yet released the victim's name publicly, but a friend who had been with her at a bar the night before identified her after being shown a photograph.
"I don't know what I'm going to say to her children," the friend told the national broadcaster SABC, as reported by The Ghana Report. "It's painful."
What police are saying
Gauteng Provincial Police Commissioner Lt Gen Tommy Mthombeni told reporters it was too early to link the latest death to the others, but he did not shut the door on the possibility that one person is behind the killings.
"For now, it's not something which we can overrule to say there's a serial killer, but we cannot conclusively indicate as such," he said.
He explained that the earlier cases shared what he called a similar "victimology" and a common method of killing, and that investigators will use those patterns to test whether the Tembisa case belongs to the same series.
Most of the earlier bodies were found in Kempton Park, the neighbourhood next to Tembisa. Another woman was found dead in Soweto. Many of the victims were young, and nearly all had been subjected to extreme violence before death.
Crime scene investigators were deployed to the cemetery to collect evidence. Separately, three men appeared in court earlier in the week in connection with one of the murders, and police say they are still looking for others who may have been involved.
The wider picture
South Africa records one of the highest murder rates in the world. Between April and June this year, 5,427 people were killed nationwide.
Police statistics do not break the figures down by gender, but the South African Human Rights Commission — a state body set up to monitor rights abuses — said last week that 569 women were murdered in that same three-month period, while 1,052 others survived attempted murder.
Less than a year ago, South African ministers declared gender-based violence a national disaster. The string of deaths around Johannesburg has renewed public anger and put fresh pressure on the government to show results.
Why it matters to Ghanaians
South Africa is one of the biggest destinations on the continent for Ghanaian traders, students and professionals, and Johannesburg is a major transit point for travellers moving between West Africa and the United States. Families following the story from Accra or from abroad will want to keep an eye on official police updates as the investigation develops.
Authorities have not said when they expect forensic results that could confirm whether the cases are connected.
