Nine women found dead in Ekurhuleni since July as police hunt Kempton Park killer

Nine women have been found dead across the Ekurhuleni district east of Johannesburg since July, and the police are investigating each death. Several of the bodies were found naked or partially clothed, and several carried visible injuries.

One of the nine is Elizabeth Moselakgomo, 38, known to those close to her as Tsontso. She left her home in Kempton Park for an afternoon run on 9 September. Her body was found three days later.

The Guardian published an opinion piece on 19 September by Nolethu Ndude, who is a gender equality and youth development specialist, asking why the public warnings that followed the Kempton Park deaths were addressed to women rather than to men. The question is a fair one and it is not new to South African readers.

What the police have said, and what they have not

The South African Police Service has confirmed it is investigating the nine deaths. It has not said the cases are linked. It has not announced an arrest in the Moselakgomo matter. Where a suspect is identified and charged, that person is entitled to a fair trial and this paper will not name anyone the courts have not named.

What the record does show is that the response in Ekurhuleni has been a police investigation and a set of public advisories telling women in and around Kempton Park not to walk or run alone, to avoid isolated places and to remain vigilant.

The numbers, and what they mean here

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime recorded a femicide rate of 12,2 per 100 000 women in South Africa in 2022, close to six times the global rate. That is the figure the Guardian carried and it is accurate. What a South African reader adds to it is the shape of the problem behind the number.

Most women killed in this country are killed by men they know. Husbands, boyfriends, former partners and relatives. The danger is not confined to dark roads and empty fields. It sits inside homes, and it follows women who have left relationships, and it arrives at the post office counter.

In August 2019, Uyinene Mrwetyana, a 19 year old University of Cape Town student, went to a post office in Claremont to collect a parcel. She was raped and murdered inside that building by an employee. The case changed how this country talks about where women are unsafe, and it is the reason the Kempton Park advisories read to many South Africans as advice that cannot work.

The state’s response, and where it stands

After protests ahead of the G20 summit in Johannesburg in November 2025, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared gender-based violence and femicide a national crisis. That declaration is on the record and it carries institutional consequences. It directs departments to act, and it creates a standard against which their action can be measured.

The Commission for Gender Equality has now called for an urgent safety audit of the areas affected by the Ekurhuleni deaths. The commission wants attention given to street lighting, surveillance, public transport routes, neglected spaces, police visibility and access to emergency assistance. That is a concrete demand with a named institution behind it, and it is the clearest next step the record currently offers.

What is not yet on the record is a national prevention plan responding to these nine deaths, as opposed to the local advisories. The question this paper puts to the Department of Police and to the Presidency is a simple one. Which national instrument is being activated under the national crisis declaration, who is accountable for it, and what additional resources have been committed to it.

What changes for people living here

For women in Kempton Park and the wider Ekurhuleni district, the practical effect of the last two months is a set of restrictions on their own movement. No running alone. No quiet roads. No isolated places. The informal systems South African women already run, the shared locations, the phone calls while walking, the number plates photographed before getting into a car, are not new. They are the baseline.

The safety audit the Commission for Gender Equality has asked for is the piece of work that would change something visible on the ground, being the lighting, the patrols, the transport routes and the emergency access. Whether it is commissioned, who runs it, and when it reports are the questions that now matter.

The police investigation into the nine deaths continues. Anyone with information on the Moselakgomo case or any of the other eight is asked to contact their nearest police station or the SAPS Crime Stop number.

Source: The Guardian, Nine women in South Africa have been murdered since July. We are being told to be vigilant, but where are the warnings to men?