DAD'S MISSION: ‘I WON'T STOP FIGHTING FOR ANSWERS'

ELLY WARREN DIED A VIOLENT DEATH IN MOZAMBIQUE. FIVE YEARS ON, AUTHORITIES STILL HAVEN’T IDENTIFIED HER KILLER

- Sarah Marinos

Paul Warren has waited a long time to discover the truth about what happened to his vivacious daughter, Elly.

In November 2016, Paul received the telephone call no parent ever wants to get– Elly’s body had been found lying outside a toilet block in a Mozambique fishing village.

The 20-year-old was just days away from returning home to Melbourne, before heading to Townsville to study marine biology. Elly’s love of the ocean had taken her to Tofo in Mozambique, a destination world-renowned for marine life, six weeks earlier to volunteer with a marine conservation project.

“Elly was confident and strong-willed, warm and kind-hearted. Any father would be proud of her,” Paul, 59, tells New Idea. “She’d worked three jobs to pay for her trip to Mozambique. She knew what she wanted and there was no way her mother and I were going to stop Elly from going. She was following her passion.”

But that trip ended tragically when Elly was found face down in the sand early in the morning of November 9, 2016. Her underwear was around her knees and her black T-shirt was torn apart.

She’d spent the previous evening with friends from her hostel, but Paul believes that later she was walking along the main beach alone and was attacked. He believes her body was moved to the toilet block to disguise the crime.