A Province in Crisis

As the Q3 crime statistics are released ahead of the SANDF deployment to the Cape Flats, we face a devastating reality.

The Western Cape is the only province with 10 police stations in the top 30 murder stations of the country.

Of the 276 gang murders, 257 occurred in the Western Cape. And those are almost all attributed to 10 stations within the Cape Flats. That’s 93%.

If gang murders were an exam, the Western Cape would finally be number one in the province.

We are seeing stations, such as Manenberg, creep into the top 30 murder stations in the country, and it has been years since Manenberg made an appearance. And it’s no wonder it’s seen an increase of 15 murders since Q3 last year.

This is the outcome of a multi-billion-rand safety plan that has not made a difference in the lives of thousands.

And now we see the Military being sent into people’s neighbourhoods. The everyday human being is treated as a potential threat just because of the area in which they live.

While the deployment of the military responds to the desperate calls from communities living under siege, in fear, and with violent death as an everyday neighbourhood experience, it is self-evidently a temporary suppression of violent crime activity. If the military deployment could solve violent crime, there would be no need to redeploy them, given all the previous deployments. None of them brought lasting peace.

Now we will wait with bated breath for the Q4 stats to see if we eclipse last year’s total, reaching over 4500.