Johannesburg - Panelbeaters who operate small businesses near municipal officers in Chiawelo, Soweto, got a shock when they came across the severely mutilated body of a man on Thursday.
The men were using what is known as the Somoho mountain area as a short cut to get to their businesses when they stumbled upon the gruesome scene.
They immediately informed the police.
Constable John Serala said what they saw was shocking.
He said the man, believed to have been in his late 40s or early 50s, was wearing faun pants, brown shoes, grey socks and a yellow jacket.
He was lying on his back and there was no skin on his face.
The eyes had been gouged out, the tongue had been cut off and the ears and nose were missing.
The skinless face did not have lips and there was just a hole where the throat had been.
The left thumb was also missing as well as the right index finger.
When police unzipped his pants to check if the genitals were there, they were found to be intact.
Serala said it was not yet clear what had happened and what had caused the man’s death.
He appealed to local residents to assist the police in their investigation.
He said that although they had opened a murder docket, they could also not rule out the possibility that the man had been on the mountain, fell and, after losing consciousness, had his skin and body parts eaten by big rats known to inhabit the area.
However, if the man had indeed been murdered, the killing could not have happened at the mountain - possibly somewhere else before the body got dumped in Chiawelo, Seralasaid.
“There was no blood there, not even little pieces of skin near the body,” he said. Although it was not known just how long the body had been lying there, it was still fresh and had not decomposed at all.
“We have opened a murder case until further information proves otherwise,” Serala said, adding that those who could help identify the man should report to Moroka police station.
In May this year, a passer-by made the gruesome discovery of a mutilated and partially burnt torso in an Ekurhuleni river.