For the second weekend in a row South Africans were greeted by yet another bloody Sunday, as it emerged that 16 people had been gunned down in separate incidents in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape and Lenasia, south of Johannesburg, over the weekend.
A group of men were playing a game of dice on a street corner in Thembelihle, Lenasia, when unknown assailants opened fire, killing four and wounding two others.
In a separate incident, also at Thembelihle, a 36-year-old man who appeared to have been robbed of his belongings, including a cellphone and bicycle, was found shot dead.
During the week, a total of 10 people were shot and robbed of their belongings in differentparts of Alexandra.
Six of those were killed and one of them was Alex FM presenter Joshua Mbatha. Mbatha was walking with two colleagues when they were ambushed by robbers who took their cellphones and shoes. After robbing them, the robbers started shooting randomly and Mbatha was hit in the chest.
On Monday, police minister Bheki Cele, home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi and minister in the presidency, Mondli Gungubele will no doubt face the wrath of fed-up Khayelitsha township locals to discuss contact crimes, including the multiple shootings that have claimed the lives of 11 people over the weekend.
That’s 44 victims whose lives have been cut short thanks to a seemingly unending epidemic of violence that tears at our country’s social fabric.
While police made a breakthrough and arrested seven suspects in connection with the Alexandra attacks, it has been a week since the attacks in Soweto and another tavern in Pietermaritzburg and no arrests have been made.
The speed with which the police, with the assistance of the community, tracked down the attackers in Alexandra, shows that police need community input to solve the Soweto and Pietermaritzburg attacks.
The vitriol against our police and government for being quick to deploy the army during the pandemic but deathly silent during the weekend massacres came thick and fast, and with good reason.
The speed with which the police, with the assistance of the community, tracked down the attackers in Alexandra, shows police need community input to solve the Soweto and Pietermaritzburg attacks.
During an imbizo hosted by police minister Bheki Cele in Alexandra on Sunday, Gauteng police commissioner Lt-Gen Elias Mawela indicated that the arrests made in Alexandra were as a result of the community providing valuable information to the police.
This means police need to work on establishing trust within the communities to stabilise spiralling criminal incidents.
These attacks, especially where guns are used, point to a problem with the proliferation of illegal firearms in the country and the police’s inability to remove them from society.
There are no harsh penalties for those found in possession of illegal firearms and ammunition.
Cele made promises to Alexandra residents on Sunday that will see more policemen and vehicles, but he also said he would return with other departments to address other community issues.
He made a similar point earlier in the week when he addressed 18 taxi bosses in an effort to curb taxi killings in KZN and announced a multi-department task team to intervene.
The key to quelling the epidemic of violence seems to lie in all departments from police, to finance to intelligence to public works, all attacking the offenders with one goal in mind — working jointly to uphold the rule of law.
Government owes it to all South Africans who are living in a constant state of trauma from the mindless violence to act now before they lose confidence in our democracy.
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