[imagesource: Kat Wilcox / Pexels]

Sure, you could say eye-watering.

You might also say it’s enough to make one cry.

Cape Town has, in the past, been crowned the murder capital of the continent and often holds the dubious distinction of having the country’s worst police stations with regard to murder stats.

Over the past week, there has been a spate of deaths linked to “gang violence, syndicates and organised crime”. Here’s BusinessTech:

Nine people were killed in Vrygond as gangs and taxi wars raged, two people were murdered in Camps Bay – one being the target and the other an innocent bystander, according to police – and another two people were killed in their cars at one of the busiest intersections in the Grassy Park area.

The issue is so bad, along with the spate of kidnappings, that it’s fair to compare Cape Town to other murder capitals around the world, according to Eldred de Klerk, director of the African Centre for Security and Intelligence Praxis.

Last year, a Mexican criminal justice council published rankings for the world’s 50 most violent cities.

Cape Town was 11th. The top 10 cities were all in Mexico

Even more concerning is that, out of all 50 cities on the ranking, Cape Town has the highest number of murders overall, with 2,911 murders recorded for the period – a murder rate of 62.22 people per 100,000…

According to crime statistics for the first quarter of 2022, cases of murder within the Western Cape have increased by 12.3% year-on-year.

The city’s ongoing gang turf wars contribute heavily towards those statistics.

Between September 5 and September 11 of this year, areas in and around Cape Town and the Cape Flats recorded 83 murders.

“We are currently experiencing the worst and most deadly gang warfare on the Cape Flats … This is a significant increase in crime that we as communities have ever seen. We are dealing with murders daily,” said Western Cape Gang Watch.

CapeTalk’s Lester Kiewit spoke to de Klerk about the city’s burgeoning reputation as a global murder capital:

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said the city intends to create its own police force, which will have the power to both investigate and convict criminals.

That, along with freeing us from the national power grid, and those CapeXit supporters might just start to believe.

[sources:bustech&capetalk]