South Africa’s Women Fear For Their Lives After Eight Deaths in Two Months

For women living around Johannesburg's eastern suburbs, the fear is becoming difficult to ignore.

Over the past two months, eight women have been found dead in and around Ekurhuleni, with several of the cases concentrated around Kempton Park and nearby areas.

The deaths have triggered a major police investigation, warnings for women to avoid isolated areas and a growing public outcry over the safety of women in South Africa.

But beyond the individual crime scenes is a much bigger question: why do women in one of Africa's most developed economies continue to live with such a deep fear of violence?

The latest cases have unfolded across Kempton Park, Rhodesfield, Olifantsfontein, Clayville and KwaThema.

The first of the eight cases dates back to July. A 37-year-old woman was found near the R21 in Kempton Park, naked and restrained with cable ties. A suspect believed to be her boyfriend was arrested two days later and remains in custody.

Another woman, aged 32, was found near the R21 on August 24, partially clothed.

Then came a series of discoveries in September.

An unidentified woman's body was found in Kempton Park on September 10 in an advanced state of decomposition.

Two days later, the body of 38-year-old Elizabeth "Tsontso" Moselakgomo was found in Rhodesfield.

Moselakgomo's case has become one of the most painful symbols of the growing fear.

She had left home on September 9 for her usual run and never returned. Her eight-year-old daughter alerted relatives when her mother failed to come home. Her body was found days later and was positively identified by her family at the Germiston mortuary.

She was a mother, a runner and part of a community that had known her.

Her death has particularly shaken South Africa's running community, where women have long used early-morning and evening runs as part of their daily lives.

Now, some runners are changing those routines.

Running clubs have encouraged members to run in groups, while some have considered additional security measures along their routes. Hundreds of runners have also gathered in different parts of the country to remember Moselakgomo and demand greater safety for women.

And the killings did not stop there.

More bodies were found in Olifantsfontein and KwaThema, bringing the number of women under the wider police investigation to eight by September 16.

Police say there are disturbing similarities between some of the cases, including the condition in which some bodies were found and the locations where they were discovered.

That has inevitably raised fears that a serial killer could be operating in the area.

But police have been careful not to make that conclusion.

Gauteng provincial commissioner Major General Fred Kekana said investigators are considering different possibilities, including whether the deaths involve multiple suspects or separate perpetrators. Detectives are comparing evidence, timelines, locations and victim profiles before drawing conclusions.

So far, police have not confirmed that a single person is responsible for all eight deaths.

A specialised multidisciplinary team has been assembled to investigate the cases, bringing together detectives and specialised units including the Murder and Robbery Unit and Investigative Psychology Unit.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has also directed law enforcement authorities to prioritise the investigations.

"We must stand up for the rights, safety and dignity of women and girls," Ramaphosa said after expressing condolences to the families affected.

But for many South Africans, the latest killings are painful precisely because they come against the backdrop of years of promises to confront gender-based violence.

In November 2025, President Ramaphosa declared gender-based violence and femicide a national crisis. The government subsequently classified GBVF as a national disaster, requiring state institutions to strengthen prevention, response and coordination mechanisms.

Yet less than a year later, eight women are dead in one regional cluster.

That contradiction is at the heart of the anger.

The National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide has called on families with missing relatives in Gauteng to come forward to assist with DNA identification of unidentified victims.

The council has also called for thorough investigations, timely forensic work and properly resourced prosecutions.

It warned the public and media against spreading unverified information about the cases, saying speculation could compromise investigations and cause further distress to the victims' families.

The Commission for Gender Equality has gone further, calling for urgent safety audits in the affected areas.

It wants authorities to examine street lighting, surveillance, pedestrian routes, public transport points, vacant and poorly monitored spaces, police visibility and access to emergency assistance.

The argument is straightforward: women should be able to walk, work, exercise and travel through public spaces without living in fear.

That is why the police warning for women to avoid walking or running alone has itself become part of the debate.

SAPS has urged women in and around Kempton Park to avoid isolated areas, remain vigilant and, where possible, travel or exercise in groups.

For many women, however, the question is increasingly whether the burden of avoiding violence should continue to fall on them.

They already plan their journeys around daylight.

They share their locations.

They call friends when they arrive.

They run in groups.

They avoid certain streets.

They carry safety devices.

They change their routines.

And still, women are being killed.

That is what has made the latest deaths so unsettling.

The victims are not merely numbers in a crime report. They are women who had families, routines, work, friendships and ordinary lives.

Elizabeth Moselakgomo went out for a run.

She did not come home.

And now women across South Africa are asking themselves what should be one of the most ordinary questions in any society:

Can I leave my home and return safely?

South Africa's broader numbers make the question even more difficult to ignore.

Between April and July 2026 alone, the country recorded 5,427 murders, an average of about 45 murders a day.

UN-linked data has also placed South Africa's femicide rate among the world's highest. A 2022 rate cited by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime was 12.2 female killings per 100,000 people, nearly six times the global rate.

Those numbers give context to the fear now spreading through Ekurhuleni.

But statistics cannot capture what happens when a mother does not come home from a run.

They cannot capture the fear of a daughter waiting at the door.

They cannot capture the decision by a woman to stop running alone, stop walking after dark or stop allowing her children to play outside.

That is the deeper impact of the Kempton Park killings.

South Africa is once again confronting the reality that declaring gender-based violence a national crisis is only the beginning.

The harder question is whether that declaration can be turned into safer streets, better investigations, faster justice, stronger prevention and a society where women do not have to organise their entire lives around the possibility of violence.

Eight women are dead.

Their families are grieving.

Police are still searching for answers.

And across South Africa, women are waiting to see whether those answers will finally bring something more than another warning to be careful.