Missing student found dead on Table Mountain hiking trail

An American student who went missing at Table Mountain in South Africa has been discovered dead on a hiking trail.

Brook Cheuvront, 20, was reported missing on Saturday after a tracking app she was using ‘never updated since she left her residence’, South African National Parks (SANParks) wrote in a Facebook post on Monday.

The UNC Morehead-Cain scholar’s friends also did not hear from her since she set out on the trek at midday that day.

She was presumed lost, and park rangers, Wilderness Search and Rescue members and trail runners searched for her until late evening ‘when it was no longer practical to continue’, according to SANParks.

The effort resumed on Sunday morning and was unsuccessful. The city of Cape Town’s piloted aircraft were then deployed, ‘resulting in the location of the missing hiker’s body on the slopes of the mountain’, wrote SANParks.

Her cause of death was not immediately known and is under investigation.

‘She was recovered. We are devastated,’ wrote her father, Steve Cheuvront, in a Facebook post asking other to take down posts on the search for her.

‘God help me and us.’

Brook, who earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina, had arrived in South Africa in August.

She was doing an internship with the nonprofit group Justice Desk Africa.

Her LinkedIn profile stated that the program involved ’empowering young South African boys from communities suffering from gang violence in the ¡Ntsika y Themba program to challenge gender-based violence and toxic masculinity’.

Local authorities have urged people to hike in groups of at least four people and avoid going alone.

In another Facebook post hours later, SANParks sought to clarify safety concerns at Table Mountain National Park. The agency noted that crime statistics decreased from 32 in November 2023 to 6 and 3 in July and August of this year.

‘Considering official statistics and visitor numbers, such expressions are speculative and may cause unnecessary alarm which undermines worthy and successful efforts,’ wrote the agency.

‘These are objective and verifiable statistics. As such, SANParks vehemently discourages the use of unverifiable and subjective statistics.’

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