The shock news of the death of an American women while hiking on Devil’s Peak in Cape Town has made global headlines.
The woman, identified as 20-year-old Brook Cheuvront, disappeared while hiking on Saturday and her body was found on Sunday.
In Cape Town doing an internship
The news of the incident quickly spread, and was covered extensively by the Washington Post in the United States, as well as the BBC in the United Kingdom.
Cheuvront, a student from North Carolina, was in Cape Town doing an internship at an NGO.
She was reported missing on Saturday after a tracking app she was using while on a solo hike stopped updating and she could not be reached.
Her body was discovered on Sunday, police confirmed to local media.
Was hiking alone
South African National Parks (SANParks), which manages Table Mountain and other national parks, said Cheuvront left her room at noon to hike up the mountain.
Her friends called the police when there were no updates on her tracking app, and they could not contact her by phone.
A search by rangers and wilderness search-and-rescue crews was conducted until it was called off late on Saturday.
A helicopter joined the search the following day and helped locate her body on the slopes of the mountain.
“The circumstances around the hiker’s death are still being investigated,” SANParks said in a statement.
Police said an autopsy would be conducted to determine the possible cause of death.
SANParks said an investigation into Cheuvront’s death was ongoing.
In a Facebook post, Cheuvront’s father said the family was “devastated.”
“God help me and us,” Steve Cheuvront wrote.
She had been a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was doing an internship at a non-governmental organisation (NG0).
South African authorities have denied there is a problem with crime in Table Mountain National Park, but urged visitors to avoid hiking on their own in a separate post.
Do you feel safe hiking alone in South Africa?
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