Five bodies recovered from Hennops River in search for missing Free State officers

JOHANNESBURG - Deputy police commissioner Shadrack Sibiya has confirmed that five bodies have now been recovered from the Hennops river, two of which are believed to be those of two missing Free State police officers.

South African Police Service (SAPS) members have been scouring the vast river in Centurion in search for a third missing female police officer who was travelling with two colleagues from Bloemfontein to Limpopo last week when they went missing.

Last Wednesday, Constables Cebekhulu Linda, Keamogetswe Buys and Boipelo Senoge went missing while en-route to their area of deployment in Limpopo.

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The bodies of a male and female recovered in the river yesterday are suspected to be that of two of the missing officers. 

Evidence led police to the N1 highway near a bridge that crosses the Hennops river on Tuesday morning.

This is where search operations have been active, throughout the day, with two more bodies now recovered.

“They started combing yesterday and that’s the first thing they found, they found two bodies. The search continued this morning. We are still searching for the vehicle, that VW Polo vehicle that we have been circulating but that has still not been found,” police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe.

Mathe said the family members of the officers had arrived in Pretoria and were being briefed by investigators.