South Africa Vigils Follow Nine Women Found Dead Near Johannesburg

The cluster of killings in Kempton Park since July points to a pattern that authorities have not yet publicly attributed to a single suspect or cause, leaving residents and civil society to press...

Residents and runners in South Africa held public vigils this week to mourn at least nine women whose bodies were found in the Kempton Park area, east of Johannesburg, since July 2026, according to BBC News.

One of the victims, Elizabeth Moselakgomo, known in her community by the nickname "Tsontso," was a regular jogger who went missing during a routine run. Her body was subsequently found in the Kempton Park area, according to BBC News. The specific date of her disappearance was not stated in the available report.

Organizers of the vigils framed the gatherings under the phrase "Enough is enough," according to BBC News. Runners formed a group specifically to pay tribute to Moselakgomo, reflecting the particular concern within running communities about safety during outdoor exercise.

Kempton Park is a city in the Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality in Gauteng province. The area includes mixed residential and industrial zones and is home to or near O.R. Tambo International Airport. South African authorities had not, as of the date of the BBC News report, publicly named a suspect or formally declared the deaths to be connected.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's 2023 Global Study on Homicide, South Africa recorded among the highest rates of female intimate-partner homicide globally. The South African government declared gender-based violence a national priority in 2019 following a wave of high-profile killings and mass protests under the slogan "Am I Next."

In September 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced an emergency response plan that included increased funding for specialized courts handling gender-based violence cases, amendments to bail laws for accused abusers, and a national strategic plan against gender-based violence and femicide. Progress in implementing those measures has been contested by civil society organizations, which have argued that prosecution rates and conviction rates remain insufficient, according to reporting by Human Rights Watch.

The 2019 protests were themselves triggered in part by the murder of Uyinene Mrwetyana, a 19-year-old University of Cape Town student, whose killing drew national attention to the frequency of femicide in the country. The current Kempton Park cases have drawn comparisons in public commentary to that moment, though South African authorities have not formally characterized the new cluster of deaths as a single criminal event.

What remains unknown in the Kempton Park cases includes: whether investigators have identified a suspect or suspects, whether forensic evidence links the deaths to one perpetrator, and what the cause of death was for each of the nine women. A formal statement from the South African Police Service or the National Prosecuting Authority would be required to resolve those open questions.

The vigils drew participants from the broader running community in Gauteng, according to BBC News, signaling that concern about the deaths has extended beyond the immediate neighborhoods where the women lived. Community-organized responses of this kind have previously preceded formal government acknowledgment of serial criminal activity in South Africa, including in the cases of the Nasrec body dumping incidents in 2023, when multiple women's bodies were found near a Johannesburg highway.

As of September 19, 2026, no South African government official had issued a public statement specifically addressing the cluster of nine deaths in Kempton Park, based on available reporting. The BBC News report did not indicate whether families of the other eight victims had been publicly identified or had spoken to media.