An American woman who went missing while hiking on South Africa’s Table Mountain has been found dead, officials confirmed.
Brook Cheuvront, a 20-year-old student from North Carolina, was in Cape Town interning at a non-governmental organization (NGO). She was reported missing on Saturday after the tracking app she was using during a solo hike stopped updating, and she became unreachable.
Her body was discovered on Sunday in a remote area of Devil’s Peak, according to local police.
South African National Parks (SANParks), which oversees Table Mountain, stated that Cheuvront left her accommodation at noon to hike. Concerned friends contacted authorities when they noticed no further updates from her tracking app and were unable to reach her by phone.
Rangers and wilderness search-and-rescue teams conducted an immediate search, but it was suspended late Saturday. The following day, a helicopter joined the efforts and located her body on the mountain slopes.
“The circumstances surrounding the hiker’s death are under investigation,” SANParks said in a statement. Police also confirmed that an autopsy would be conducted to determine the cause of death.
In a Facebook post, Cheuvront’s father, Steve, expressed the family’s heartbreak, writing, “God help me and us.”
Cheuvront had been studying at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was completing an internship in Cape Town.
South African authorities, while denying any significant crime problem in Table Mountain National Park, advised visitors to avoid hiking alone in a separate statement. An investigation into Cheuvront’s death remains ongoing.