The community of Makungwi in the Nzhelele area is still in a state of shock. This follows the discovery of the body of a local girl in nearby bushes on Monday morning.

The girl has since been identified as Tshilidzi Muungulwa (20), a Grade 10 pupil at Tswime Secondary School. She went missing on Sunday afternoon when she went to collect money for her mother's plastic containers business.

Details about her last hours of her life are sketcthy at this stage, but some claim that she was last seen with her boyfriend not far from her home. Her lifeless body was found in a ditch some 300 metres away from her own home. She had no visible wounds, but had marks on her neck, which suggests that she might have been strangled.

The body was found by a passerby in the morning who notified the police.

The father of the dead girl, Mr Petrus Muungulwa, said he had received a phone call from his wife that the daughter had not returned home while he was still at work in Makhado (Louis Trichardt). "My daughter was dedicated to her school work. She never slept out and we were very worried to learn that she had not come back home," said Muungulwa.

The Mphephu police spokesperson, W/O Netshidzati, said they had received a report about the incident  and rushed to the scene. "We found the body of a woman in her twenties with scartches on her neck. It looks like she was strangled and her pants were pulled down," he said.

He said they had opened a murder case and no one had been arrested so far. "We are investigating and we are also making an appeal to anyone with information to come forward and help us in our investigation," said Netshidzati.