Grim discoveries of murdered women spark fear in South Africa

"What we are going to do, I have no idea," sobs Nokwanda Matshikiza, reflecting on the murder of her niece Dineo Motapane. "But something must give."

"For us, for all the other women. How many other bodies will be found before something happens?"

Nokwanda is speaking to the BBC from the family home near South Africa's main city, Johannesburg, just two days after relatives identified Dineo's body.

The 38-year-old mother of a young child was last seen alive on Sunday. Her battered and partly burned body was later found in the residential region of Ekurhuleni.

Nokwanda weeps as she describes how the family will have to face, at some point, the grim task of telling Dineo's daughter of her death.

"How do you explain that your parent was brutally murdered, dumped in a field, and just left there, discarded like a piece of rubbish.

"There's no coming to peace with it," she adds. "It's something that you can never reconcile yourself with, that you can never get over."

Dineo's death this week has come amid a series of comparable incidents in Ekurhuleni – her body one of three discovered there this week. In total, nine bodies of murdered women have been found in similar circumstances in the region since July.

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