Tenth woman's body found as South Africa police probe killings

Police in South Africa say they have discovered another body in Ekurhuleni, to the east of Johannesburg, bringing the number of women found dead there in recent months to 10.

The body was found on Saturday morning and was identified by the friend with whom she had been at a bar the previous evening.

The local police commissioner said his force could not rule out the possibility that there was a serial killer on the loose, noting similarities across the 10 deaths in Ekurhuleni, as well as another in Soweto.

The deaths have sparked a national outcry about the scale of violence against women in the country, which has one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world.

The latest body was discovered at a cemetery in the Tembisa neighbourhood north-east of central Johannesburg.

Police issued a statement a short while later saying crime scene investigators were at the scene gathering evidence. Officials have yet to publicly identify the victim.

The woman's friend told national broadcaster SABC that she recognised her friend's clothes from the previous night when shown a picture of the body.

"I don't know what I'm going to say to her children," she said while wiping away tears. "It's painful."