Hundreds of runners gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s Kempton Park, near Johannesburg, where the body of a 38-year-old mother was discovered earlier this month — one of nine women to be murdered in the district in two months.
Elizabeth Moselakgomo, a well-known figure locally, was last seen alive on September 9 when she left to go running. Her body was found three days later. She leaves behind an eight-year-old daughter.
South Africa suffers from a murder rate of more than 60 a day on average, one of the highest globally. But in this district alone, east of Johannesburg, nine women were murdered between July 15 and mid-September, provoking growing fear and anger across the country.
In recent days, ordinary people have been gathering — from Kempton Park to Cape Town — to honour the memory of the victims and to call for action to end the killings.
At Kempton Park on Saturday morning, several hundred runners answered a call by various local running clubs, covering 13 kilometres as part of their protest.
“We shouldn’t be looking at our back. We should be protected at all times. We want to reclaim our streets,” said 47-year-old Hlompho Matji, a runner and accounting firm data analyst who lives in the same neighbourhood as the victim. “The whole of last week I didn’t run… We are scared.”
The discovery of the women’s bodies, some partially naked and battered, has raised fears that a serial killer or group of killers may be operating in the area. So far, investigators have refused to commit to either theory, but they have established that some of the women were not killed where their bodies were discovered.
According to the United Nations, one in three women in South Africa experiences physical or sexual violence during her lifetime. The country’s government has described the levels of gender-based violence as a national disaster.
“It has to stop because they are taking away our freedom, they are taking away our confidence now,” said Busisiwe Pakati, 53, a software engineer who described herself as a seasoned runner.
Mkhuleko Tshabalala, a 50-year-old financial adviser also from Kempton Park, was one of the many men who joined the gathering.
“I used to see her here, as a fellow runner,” he said. “So we went around, up to the spot where she passed. It was very, very emotional.”
A few extinguished candles on the ground and a bouquet of flowers marked where the body was found. It was discovered along a discreet driveway squeezed between a highway and a concrete wall behind a hotel.
On the other side of the highway, the red-white-and-blue tail of a British Airways aircraft could be seen, a reminder of the proximity of Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport.
The area borders a leafy residential neighbourhood, ideal for jogging but only accessible from Kempton city centre via major roads lined with car dealerships and vacant plots.
More than 1,400 km away, in the tourist hub of Cape Town, more than a thousand students held their own vigil at the university campus on Friday evening.
“I want to live, not survive,” read one placard held by a student.
“Every day there’s a murder that happens,” said Kitso Mojapelo, a student leader at the University of Cape Town. “And there’s always the thought that it could be my mother, it could be my sister, it could be one of my cousins, it could be one of my classmates, my tutors, my peers.
“And there’s a continued silence from the country… a continued list of failures from the government,” she added. “And enough is enough.”
Moselakgomo will be buried on Sunday in the small town of Phake, in northeastern Mpumalanga province.
