Police in South Africa have found a woman’s body in a Johannesburg suburb, the tenth in recent months.
The body appeared to have been discovered Saturday morning and was identified by a friend who had been with her after a bar visit the prior evening.
A police commissioner said the force could not dismiss the possibility that a serial killer might be at large, citing similarities between the ten deaths in Ekurhuleni and an earlier one in Soweto.
The killings have ignited a national outcry about the scale of violence against women in a country that ranks among the world’s highest in gender‑based crime.
The latest body was located in a cemetery in the Tembisa neighbourhood, north‑east of central Johannesburg.
Crime‑scene investigators are still gathering evidence at the site, while officials have yet to release the victim’s name publicly.
A friend told the national broadcaster that she recognised the victim’s clothing from the previous night, having been shown a photo of the body.
"I do not know what I will say to her children," she said, tears streaming as she spoke. "It is painful."
Gauteng Police Commissioner Tommy Mthombeni stressed that it remains too early to confirm whether the current death is linked to the others.
He explained that the other bodies share a similar victimology, suggesting a shared modus operandi, which will guide investigators in determining a connection.
"For now, we cannot definitively state there is a serial killer, but we also cannot confirm there is not," the deputy general said to reporters.
South Africa reported 5,427 murders from April to June alone, according to national homicide statistics. Yet the focus remains on the manner in which most of the violent deaths have affected young women.
The ten similar cases have all been uncovered in the same region—most in Kempton Park, just a neighbourhood away from Tembisa—and share circumstances that hint at a systematic pattern.
The wave of killings has pressured the national government, less than a year after ministers declared gender‑based violence a disaster.
While police data does not segment victims by gender, the South African Human Rights Commission reported 569 women killed and 1,052 survived attempts on their lives during the same period.
Three men have recently appeared in court, accused of involvement in one of the nine murders; authorities remain in pursuit of others potentially connected to the cases.
