Global News

Authorities in South Africa will deploy the army to parts of the Western Cape province, including the port city of Cape Town, to help police battle a surge of gang-related violence in its poorer neighbourhoods.

The defence ministry announced in a statement on Friday that troops would be sent to the “worst-affected crime areas” for at least three months from July.

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) said the deployment will take place at a later date and not on Friday as the ministry had announced.

“It will go ahead as soon as we have all the necessary paperwork in order,” SANDF head of communications Siphiwe Dlamini told the News24 channel on Friday.

The ministry’s move came after recent bloodshed in mainly poor majority-black and mixed-race areas prompted a provincial official to liken the situation in parts of the province to a “war zone”, with some 2,000 people killed since January.

Communities in those districts often bear the brunt of violence spread over a vast area called the Cape Flats, where high rates of unemployment and drug abuse have fuelled gang activity.

In a crime last Friday, which made national headlines, six women aged 18 to 26 were murdered when unknown gunmen entered a home and opened fire.

The next day, another five men, aged 18 to 39, were shot dead and one was injured in two separate shooting incidents, said Albert Fritz, a Western Cape provincial official tasked with ensuring community safety.

“In the Western Cape, 1,875 people were murdered in the past six months alone. This means that many of our most vulnerable residents in the province are living in a war zone,” Fritz said after more than a dozen murders over one weekend last month.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/07/army-deployed-quell-violent-crime-cape-town-190712133325988.html