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Residents of Sydenham, a suburb west of central Durban, are caught in the crossfire of a violent and deadly war between rival gangs.

The Hard Livings gang, which has an extensive footprint across Cape Town, has now muscled in on the turf of the Sydenham Heights Boys.

At stake is control of the area’s lucrative illicit drug trade and this has resulted in what IOL calls “a full-scale drug war” and “a series of tit-for-tat murders”.

While the Hard Livings Gang has been in the area for around five years, there’s now been a serious escalation in violence.

In the last three months alone community members say more than 20 people have been killed:

…the Hard Livings gangsters – known locally as the “Kaapies” – were brought into Durban by a local drug kingpin who lived in Cape Town and formed a relationship with former Hard Livings gang boss, Rashied Staggie.

Staggie was gunned down in Salt River in Cape Town in 2019.

It is alleged that the local kingpin brought in more than 30 Hard Living gangsters to Sydenham after several of his drug “shops” were robbed in Sydenham Heights which are three high rise blocks of former tenement buildings that have for years been plagued by gangsterism, drugs and violence.

One community member says that gangs can sometimes be at war for three hours without a single police officer arriving on the scene.

It’s a situation they’re all too familiar with. Consider this video from 2018:

#Sydenham residents say they live in fear due to the ongoing drug-related crimes and gun battles that have recently been taking place in #SydenhamHeights. Video: Supplied pic.twitter.com/qjTOY0uaXm

— ECR_Newswatch (@ECR_Newswatch) September 26, 2018

Terrified parents are forced to keep their children indoors and others fear going to work or the shops:

Many residents who spoke to IOL feel the police are complicit and are either unable to arrest the situation or don’t know how.

“It will be very simple for the police to end this drug war. All they need to do is set up a satellite police station in Sydenham Heights that is manned 24 hours by police.

“The shootings and the drug dealing will stop immediately. But we suspect that they don’t want to do this because they are on the take and will lose money if they do”.

Residents who attended a Community Policing Forum meeting in the area yesterday said police knew who the drug lords operating in the area were.

Speak out, though, and the consequences can be fatal. Again, via IOL:

A resident said at least two people were gunned down after reporting drug-related crimes to the Sydenham SAPS.

A Sydenham Heights resident said her daughter was pointed out by a known drug dealer after she spoke out about crime in the area.

“My daughter was walking home and he pointed her out and said he knew who her mother was,” the woman said.

Another resident said a local was shot dead in his sleep after he tipped police off about a murder.

Sydenham SAPS Vispol Head Colonel Greg Joseph admitted that police were “not equipped to handle the surge in shootings” and said the station had asked for 20 or 30 more officers to be deployed.

Whether it’s Durban or Cape Town, there appears to be little that can be done to curb the power wielded by these well-established gangs.

[sources:iol&iol]