The discovery of seven women’s bodies around Johannesburg’s OR Tambo international airport, five of them in the past week, has intensified outrage over South Africa’s failure to protect women from lethal violence. The deaths have unsettled communities across Gauteng and renewed demands for urgent action against femicide.
Seven deaths around a global gateway
Public attention sharpened after Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo failed to return from a run on 9 September. Her eight-year-old daughter alerted relatives, who contacted the police. The 38-year-old’s body was found on Saturday and identified by relatives on Monday, after news of her disappearance spread rapidly online.
Police said on Saturday that four women’s bodies had been found in Kempton Park since 15 July. The town lies across the highway from OR Tambo airport. All four victims were half-naked and showed visible bruising. Two further bodies were discovered on Monday and Tuesday in Olifantsfontein, about 15 miles north of Kempton Park. On Tuesday, officers announced that another woman’s naked and decomposed body had been found 25 miles to the south-east.
Moselakgomo’s death has become a potent symbol of the vulnerability faced by women even during ordinary daily routines. After her body was confirmed, her friend Sakane Mokoena captured the wider mood in a post on Instagram: “In this country we are prey.”
Police examine possible links
Specialist detectives are investigating the latest deaths, including whether there may be a connection between them. On Saturday, officers said they were considering the possibility of a serial killer. By Monday, however, police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe urged caution.
“For now, nothing tells us that we’ve got a serial killer,” Mathe told reporters. She added that a suspect in the killing of the first woman, whose body was found in July, was already in custody. The suspect is understood to have been her boyfriend.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Tuesday that he had instructed police authorities to prioritise the murder investigations. While the gender of any suspect or suspects in the other deaths has not been confirmed, campaigners have called on men to confront their role in challenging violence against women and children.
Anger at the burden placed on women
South Africa has one of the highest femicide rates in the world. In the year to 31 March 2024, more than 27,600 people were murdered, including 5,578 women, according to the latest police figures. Women’s groups have spent years urging the government to treat gender-based violence as a national emergency. After hundreds of women protested on the eve of the G20 summit in Johannesburg in November 2025, Ramaphosa declared the problem a national crisis. Yet campaigners say the absence of a concrete plan has been followed by more deaths.
As the investigation widened, specialist officers issued a stark warning: “Women in and around Kempton Park are urged not to walk or run alone, particularly in isolated areas. They should avoid secluded spaces, remain vigilant and, where possible, travel or exercise in groups.”
The advice provoked immediate anger.
Many runners said they already took precautions, including sharing their routes with friends and family. Women For Change, an advocacy group, argued that the responsibility was being shifted towards those most at risk. “We are tired of being told to be vigilant when women are already doing everything possible to stay alive,” the group said.
It also criticised the level of attention generated only after Moselakgomo’s disappearance became widely known. “It should not take a missing woman, a desperate family, runners and communities searching, and a case going viral, before an area is searched with this intensity,” the group said.
A runner remembered
Mokoena met Moselakgomo about two years ago, when she joined a running club so she would not have to train alone on Saturdays. Friends remembered a devoted mother whose conversations frequently returned to her daughter.
“She’s an amazing woman,” Mokoena said. “She always spoke about her daughter. Tsontso always said ‘Bye guys, I have to go, I have to go to my child’.
“That’s just an example of how close she was with her baby girl. And she was a really light-spirited, funny and joyful woman, who was kind – very, very kind.”
Running clubs across South Africa have organised events in Moselakgomo’s memory. Mokoena hopes the tributes will sustain pressure on the authorities rather than fade with the news cycle.
“I’m just happy that the world, or at least our country, was standing still for a moment to acknowledge what is happening. Let’s get this out there and figure out exactly what is happening to women.”
Others are directing that pressure towards men themselves. Bafana Khumalo, co-executive director of Sonke Gender Justice, said silence and indifference helped create space for abuse to continue.
“When some of these things happen in our presence, most of us men tend to look the other way,” Khumalo said. “You have excuses like ‘No, it’s not my business’. We feel strongly that violence against women is our business. We need, as men, to begin to face each other squarely and hold each other accountable.”
Why it Matters
The seven deaths cannot yet be treated as the work of one killer, but their proximity in time and place has exposed a deeper national emergency: women in South Africa are being killed at a rate that official declarations have failed to arrest. The public response to Moselakgomo’s death shows both the power of civil society and the inadequacy of asking women simply to alter their behaviour. For Ramaphosa’s government, the test is no longer rhetorical; it is whether police, courts and public institutions can deliver protection, justice and prevention before another ordinary journey becomes a search for a body.