Five Black Women. Five Bodies of Water. And a History We Can No Longer Ignore

History tells us something uncomfortable about the value placed on Black women’s lives.

It tells us that when Black women disappear, the world rarely stops.

Blessing Olusegun was 21. A student and care worker. She was found dead on a beach in Bexhill on Sea. Her death was ruled a drowning.

Kayon Williams was 24. A fashion blogger. Her body was found in the River Thames four days after a night out. While she was missing, there was little national coverage.

Taiwo Balogun was 53. Her body was discovered 29 days after she disappeared in a lake near Bluewater Shopping Centre. Police said the death was not being treated as suspicious.

Samaria Ayanle was 19. A student at SOAS University of London. University staff eventually alerted police weeks after she was last seen. Her body was found five days later.

Edna Mmbali Ombakho was 31. A Kenyan master’s student. She was reported missing after going for a walk on 1 February. Her body was discovered on 9 March.

Five women.
Five Black women.
Five bodies of water.

And barely a ripple in the national conversation.

No daily countdowns on rolling news. No blanket front page coverage. No televised national appeals asking the public to help find them.

Just brief local reports followed by silence.

Most of us did not even know they were missing.

This silence is not new. It sits inside a much longer historical pattern about how Black women are seen, or more accurately, how we are not seen.

For centuries Black women’s lives have been treated as expendable. During slavery our bodies were labour. During colonialism our suffering was invisible. Even in modern societies that claim progress, our pain rarely triggers the same national urgency.

Black feminist scholars have long described this as the hierarchy of whose lives are considered worthy of protection.

The pattern is painfully familiar. When Black women go missing, their cases rarely receive the same level of attention as others. Media scholars have described this imbalance as the missing white woman syndrome, where cases involving white women dominate headlines while cases involving women of colour struggle to gain visibility.

The contrast in public reaction was painfully clear during the tragic disappearance of Sarah Everard.

Her case rightly sparked national outrage. The media covered every development. Politicians spoke. Vigils were organised across the country. Her name became a rallying cry for women’s safety.

It was the response any missing woman deserves.

But the question that hangs in the air today is this.

Why does that level of urgency seem so rare when the missing woman is Black?

Five Black women have died. Their bodies were found in water across different parts of the country. Yet their stories have not dominated the national conversation in the same way.

That silence speaks to something deeper than individual tragedies. It reflects a society that still struggles to see Black women as central to the story of who deserves protection.

When I read about these cases, I turned to my partner and said something that may sound uncomfortable but feels painfully true.

This is why.

This is why economic strength matters. This is why building our own institutions matters. This is why Black women must invest in ownership, independence, and infrastructure.

Because history shows us that systems do not always protect us.

Not consistently.
Not urgently.
Not equally.

When institutions fail to provide protection, communities begin building their own forms of safety.

Every Black woman who builds financial independence is strengthening that protection.

Every Black woman who owns assets, builds a business, creates stable income, and refuses to rely entirely on systems that have historically undervalued her life is creating a new form of security.

Economic power is protection.

Financial stability is protection.

Ownership is protection.

Because the truth is that when the media does not amplify our stories and when institutions move slowly, our communities are often left to search for answers ourselves.

The organisation ForBlackWomenUK recently captured what many people are quietly asking. There has been speculation online about whether someone could be targeting Black people, particularly Black women, and disposing of bodies in water.

Whether that speculation proves accurate or not, the deeper issue remains.

Black women deserve urgency.

Black women deserve visibility.

Black women deserve protection.

Black women deserve to be searched for with the same intensity, the same resources, and the same national attention afforded to others.

Until the world learns that lesson, we cannot afford to remain passive.

We build our own networks.
We build our own wealth.
We build our own systems of protection.

And we keep speaking the names of the women whose lives deserve far more than a quiet line in a local news report.

Blessing Olusegun.
Kayon Williams.
Taiwo Balogun.
Samaria Ayanle.
Edna Mmbali Ombakho.

Say their names.
And refuse to let history keep repeating itself.