ELLY WARREN "SOMEONE'S GETTING AWAY with MURDER"

Nearly eight years after the body of 20-year-old Melburnian Elly Warren was discovered face down near a beach in Mozambique, her devastated family are still fighting for answers and to keep the unsolved murder case open.

- Michael Crooks

When Paul Warren first visited the tropical paradise of Tofo, Mozambique, in 2018, his heart was heavy but his adrenaline was "pumping". It was there in 2016 that his daughter, aspiring marine biologist Elly Warren, was found dead, partially naked her T-shirt ripped, her underwear down near her knees - and her throat jammed with sand. Local police called it an overdose.

Retracing the final days of his daughter, who had gone to Tofo for a volunteer ocean research mission, Paul visited the beaches Elly swam at, the ramshackle bar where she gathered in the sultry evenings with friends, and the beachside lodge where she stayed.

But the most painful part of his pilgrimage was stepping onto the hard dirt ground outside a public toilet block, a short stroll from Tofo's main beach and its endless roll of waves. It was there that the body of his 20-year-old daughter was discovered face down by a local fisherman at dawn on November 9, 2016. Paul knew the precise location because the fisherman had taken a photo of the young woman in situ, and the man's nephew had sent the photo to Paul for a modest - if not sensitive - fee of 200 meticals (about $5).

"The first time I walked up and saw where Elly's body had laid," begins Paul, before his voice catches and he stops. Taking a breath, he starts again. "Imagine if you're a father and if you've seen that photo, and you knew your daughter's body was lying there... it was hard, it was really hard."

The pain of losing his "adventurous and intelligent" daughter has been exacerbated by a local investigation that first called Elly's death an "overdose", and what he claims to be a lack of proactive involvement on the part of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) the authority that can assist investigators in foreign jurisdictions in crimes against Australians.