Luyanda Cele’s body was found dumped near Durban’s popular Metro Lodge, in South Beach without her lower lip and tongue after going for a drink

Luyanda Cele’s body was found dumped near Durban’s popular Metro Lodge, in South Beach without her lower lip & tongue.

Luyando went missing on Friday after work. Luyanda Cele (24) told her friends that she was going for drinks after work & she went missing.

The mutilated body of a 24-year-old Durban woman who had started an internship at the eThekwini municipality last year was found on Monday, three days after she was last seen leaving her office.

Luyanda Cele’s body was found dumped on one of Durban’s busy streets after she was last seen in the CBD on Friday afternoon.

A missing person’s poster was published on social media, saying her colleagues reported she had left the office after work on Friday. Luyanda, who was an occupational health and safety intern at the municipality, allegedly told one of her sisters she would be home late as she was going out for drinks after work. 

“The details of the person she went for drinks with are unknown,” read the missing person’s poster. Luyanda’s sister, Sithabile Cele, said the family was contacted by police on Monday and asked to go to Point police station. When they got there, police explained to them they had found Luyanda’s body near Durban’s popular Metro Lodge, in South Beach, in the early hours of Saturday. 

“They said she was found without her lower lip and tongue. We are told that the police are still going to be conducting a postmortem to check what else was removed from her body and if she was raped. We are still confused about how she got there and what could have happened to her,” said Cele.

“Her colleagues reported that she left the office, Rennie House on Victoria Embankment, on Friday after 4pm. She had told her sister that she was going out for drinks after work. The details of the person she met are unknown,” the poster read.

According to her sister, Sithabile, they were called and asked to go to the Point SAPS station where they were told that a woman’s body was found near Metro Lodge in South Beach.

Sithabile said they were told that her bottom lip and tongue had been cut out.

She said police were still to conduct a post mortem which would determine if any other body parts had been removed or if she had been raped.