South African police have discovered the body of a tenth woman in Ekurhuleni, a large municipality to the east of Johannesburg, deepening fears that a serial killer may be targeting women in the area. The semi-naked body was found on Saturday morning near a cemetery in the Tembisa township, a densely populated area north-east of central Johannesburg. A friend who had been with the victim at a bar the previous evening identified her by her clothing when shown a photograph, saying through tears: "I don't know what I'm going to say to her children. It's painful."

Gauteng Provincial Police Commissioner Tommy Mthombeni said the victim appeared to have been stoned to death, with a post-mortem examination to confirm the cause of death. He acknowledged "similar victimology" and a shared "modus operandi" across the cases, but stopped short of formally declaring a serial killer at large. "For now, it's not something which we can overrule to say there's a serial killer, but we cannot conclusively indicate as such," he said. The nine earlier victims, most of them women in their 20s and 30s, were found in similar circumstances since July, many in the nearby Kempton Park neighbourhood. Several were found stripped of their clothing and showed signs of sexual assault and extreme violence. Three suspects have been arrested in connection with some of the deaths, including two women charged this week over the ninth victim, in what police say may have been a relationship-related matter.

To encourage public cooperation, police have offered a reward of 400,000 rand (approximately $25,000), with a further $31,000 pledged by the Democratic Alliance, one of South Africa's major political parties. President Cyril Ramaphosa described the latest discovery as deeply saddening. "It is a shame for the men of South Africa that we continue to kill the women of our beautiful country," he said. Women in the affected communities say fear has become part of daily life, with many afraid to go to the gym or walk to a nearby shop.

The killings have drawn renewed national attention to gender-based violence, which South Africa declared a national disaster less than a year ago. The country has one of the highest femicide rates in the world, with approximately 15 women killed every day on average. Between April and June this year, 569 women were killed and a further 1,052 survived attempted murder, according to the South African Human Rights Commission. The national Gender-Based Violence Command Centre received 6,782 distress calls between September 1 and 16 alone — a 21 percent rise from the same period in August — underscoring the scale of a crisis that successive government pledges have so far failed to contain.