[imagesource: Joao Silva / The New York Times]

It’s always interesting to see what the world is reading about our neck of the woods, and if you want global reach, you can’t do much better than the New York Times.

We’ve already had the BBC call Cape Town ‘Murder Town’, so strap yourselves in.

In an article published yesterday, titled “As Gang Murders Surge, South Africa Sends Army to Cape Town, and the City Cheers“, Kimon de Greef (who also wrote about the Spur boycotts recently) outlines how and why SANDF troops have been deployed to the area.

We know that residents of the affected areas did cheer the arrival of the troops, although we also know that many gang leaders have spoken about how little they fear the army, and how it’s basically business as usual.

First, some of the jarring stats from the article, with all of the photos taken by Joao Silva:

Cape Town, widely known as a tourist destination for its historical sites and natural beauty, has become one of the world’s most dangerous cities. The police recorded more than 2,800 murders in 2018, and its homicide rate — about 66 killings per 100,000 people — is surpassed by only the most violent cities in Latin America, according to the Citizens’ Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice, a nongovernmental group in Mexico…

The police precinct with the highest number of killings in South Africa last year, Nyanga, also in the Cape Flats, had 308 murders — one fewer than Baltimore, a city with 10 times as many people. Mitchells Plain had 140 murders, while central Cape Town — home to upmarket restaurants, galleries and hotels — had just eight.

When you are confronted with questions like ‘is it safe?’ by friends who are keen to visit from overseas, it’s because they’ve read stats like those above.

Trying to stanch the bloodshed, President Cyril Ramaphosa ordered the military intervention on July 12, despite experts’ warnings that soldiers can do little about the underlying issues, like worsening corruption and rising unemployment, that have allowed gangs to reign over the townships for decades…

A few weeks into the deployment, the bloodshed had not paused in some places. In Mitchells Plain, less than 48 hours after a military patrol withdrew back to its base, a man named Ashley Cupido was killed.

“You hear gunshots and hope it’s not your child,” said his mother, Barbara Cupido, several days after the killing. Mr. Cupido’s body was still at the city mortuary, where the surge in violence has caused a backlog.

Mr. Cupido lived in an area controlled by the Hard Livings gang. His girlfriend and 5-year-old son lived on Americans’ turf. He was shot walking between the two homes, his mother said.

It is where the gangs overlap that the most violence often occurs – see this map to see which gangs operate in each area and who is battling for control.

We often read about the deaths, and people caught in the crossfire, but the day-to-day lives of those who live in these areas still have the ability to shock:

Every evening, Mr. Myburgh, the radio technician, locks his family indoors and switches on the television. “Walk outside,” he said, “you’re probably going to get shot.”

The night before the military arrived, just a few blocks from Mr. Myburgh’s home, a young man named David Hermanus was gunned down. In retaliation, gangsters sprayed a nearby house with bullets, injuring a man and his 18-year-old niece. Another man, Garth Adams, was killed the next afternoon, about an hour before the patrols began.

“This is how we’re living,” said Mr. Myburgh. “For us, this is normal…It’s the guns that changed everything,” Mr. Myburgh said.

There have been a number of crimes recently that have shaken Capetonians to their cores, and rightly so, and entire communities should not be forced to live in daily fear for their lives.

To read the rest of that excellent New York Times article, head here.

[source:nytimes]