The body of a Durban woman has been discovered in a public toilet in Inanda.

Police spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Nqobile Gwala, said officers were investigating a case of murder after the body of the 57-year-old woman was found in the Bhambayi area on Saturday morning.

She said the body had been found with a “burnt face and multiple stab wounds to the breast, right and left thigh”.

“The motive for the killing is unknown,” according to Gwala.

KwaZulu-Natal Social Development MEC Nonhlanhla Khoza said the woman had gone out with friends for drinks but never returned home.

Khoza said:

Her partner only heard from his neighbours that [the woman] was trending on social media after she was brutally raped, killed, and burned by unknown people.

She added that the matter was only reported to the Department of Social Development’s Inanda service office on Tuesday.

Khoza said “local people should not sleep peacefully knowing that women in their area were not safe”.

“It is shocking that we live with heartless people. They first attack an innocent woman, rape her, kill her and burn her body. This is so inhumane. How can people attack a woman after killing her (sic), and they take her dignity even in death,” she said.

A team of social workers has been dispatched to the family to provide psychosocial support and further counselling to the woman’s friends and family.