Police raise Ekurhuleni toll to seven women as task team hunts suspects

Seven women have been killed in Ekurhuleni since July, five of them in the past few days, and the seventh was confirmed on Tuesday afternoon after a body was found floating in a river in Clayville in Tembisa last week.

Gauteng police raised the count after consulting local police. They have not said the killings are the work of one person, and they have not announced an arrest.

Five of the seven bodies were found in the past few days, in different parts of Ekurhuleni. Police have confirmed the victims were discovered in various stages of undress, which points to sexual assault. That is the pattern that has brought women onto the streets and onto social media this week, asking what more they are expected to do to stay safe.

What the police say they are doing

SAPS spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said investigators are still working out whether they are dealing with one perpetrator or a group of men, and whether some of the killings are copycat crimes. She said no linkages have been established yet.

“We are not going to rush the investigators because we need to ensure that they do a thorough job,” Mathe said. “This is not an investigation that you can rush because it is quite complex.”

Police have brought in crime intelligence, the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department, private security companies and the taxi industry to help track down those responsible. Mathe appealed for calm in Kempton Park and across the province, and acknowledged that residents’ anxiety is valid.

The department’s own account of the investigation is that it is wide and unresolved. That is the position as it stands, and it is the reason no name has been attached to the killings.

The running community, and the warning it rejected

The killings have landed hardest in the running community after the murder of Elizabeth Moola Hloma, who went missing during a routine afternoon jog in Kempton Park and was later found dead. eNCA reporter Slindile Khumalo joined women runners on a morning run in Johannesburg, where the response to police advice that women should not run alone was blunt.

“I prefer running with people, not alone,” one runner said. “But there are days that you have to train alone. You shouldn’t feel unsafe to train alone. It is not fair.”

Another described the advice as a burden rather than a protection. “We have to be very vigilant of our surroundings, where we’re going, and it’s like it’s taken away our freedom,” she said. “We have to make sure we fit into groups, schedules, everything, for our safety.”

The runners want more men to take an active role in raising awareness of gender-based violence, and they want the ministry to treat the killings as a national emergency rather than a policing problem.

The activists’ question

Bisi, founder of the Qanel Foundation, a civil society organisation that works on gender-based violence and femicide, put the question that has run through the week’s public response.

“One woman who loses their life is one too many,” she said. “The question is no longer, am I next. The question is, when will it happen for me?”

She named what she described as a gap in state attention. “Where are the resources to make sure that these perpetrators are found?” she asked. “Where is the honourable president Ramaphosa right now? Where is his cabinet, his leadership, standing up and saying we are acting, not we are still consulting, we are still having meetings?”

Her charge is a charge about capacity and urgency, and it is the one the police response will be measured against in the coming weeks.

What happens next

Police have asked the public for patience while detectives work, and have said the investigation will not be rushed. The task team’s next public update, and any arrest it produces, is the step that matters for the families of the seven women and for every woman in Ekurhuleni who has changed how she moves through her own neighbourhood.

The Enquirer has asked Gauteng SAPS for the circumstances of each death, the mandate of the task team, and whether any arrests have been made.

Source: eNCA (YouTube), eNCA News Bite | Seven women killed in Ekurhuleni, ANC-IEC court fight and Trump dismisses AI fears, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE3yLt96oVA