PHUMZA SOKANA | From senseless murders and bizarre extortions, Eastern Cape beggars belief

What is happening in the Eastern Cape?

On Monday morning, South Africa woke up to the shocking news of yet another senseless mass shooting in the Eastern Cape. This time, six community patrol members in Godini village, near Tina Falls, Qumbu, were shot dead and four others wounded on Sunday night.

Just a week ago, 18 people were shot dead in Lusikisiki. This triggered many questions about violent and peculiar crimes in the country, particularly in the Eastern Cape.

In the October 28 shooting, the victims were believed to be relatives and neighbours. Thirteen of them — 12 women and one man — were found dead in one house and the other four in a neighbouring house. The 18th victim succumbed to injuries at the hospital a little later.

Recently, the Eastern Cape has experienced several gruesome and divergent crimes. These include the case of a desperate Butterworth mother who killed her three children because she couldn’t take care of them. Financial hardship and a daily struggle to put food on the table were cited as the reasons 38-year-old Bongeka Buso gave rat poison to Oratile and Orabile — aged five and eight — then stabbed Anathi, 14, who was found on the floor next to her bed with a knife in her neck at their Tholeni village home in August last year.

The Eastern Cape was, in July, said to be the only province in a technical recession due to sharp declines in the construction, manufacturing and mining industries, which put employment on a knife’s edge.

In the same area in December last year, a mother lost three sons, two of them initiates, in a mass shooting. Her sons — Awonke, 19, and Anele, 20, and their older brother, Sakhe, 25 — were gunned down at about 1.15am by three armed men at the initiation hut in Mntla village in Ngqamakhwe. A fourth son was hospitalised after being wounded in the arm and jaw in the shooting.

In another unsettling incident, 32-year-old Nomboleko Simayile from Ngcobo bludgeoned her four children to death with a sledgehammer. She reportedly killed her children, Lizalise, 11, Inga, 9, Othalive, 5, and Elihle, 2, while they were sleeping. Two days later, she died of a suspected heart attack. “She died without us knowing why she killed her children. We will never know the truth.” These were the words of her devastated father, Mthundezi Simayile, who spoke after burying four of his grandchildren.

It seems there is no end in sight for crime in the province, one of the poorest in the country. The Eastern Cape was, in July, said to be the only province in a technical recession due to sharp declines in the construction, manufacturing and mining industries, which put employment on a knife’s edge.

The Eastern Cape Socio-Economic Consultative Council said the provincial economy failed to recover from the national economic contraction in 2023’s third quarter, and what followed were declines over the next two consecutive quarters. This led to the Eastern Cape’s gross domestic product decreasing from R368.8bn in the last quarter of 2023 to R366.9bn in the first quarter of 2024. The South African economy, meanwhile, managed to just stave off a technical recession in the last three quarters.

Crime is a major economic and social problem in most developing countries. Though poverty is not the only reason for criminal behaviour, many scholars have established a correlation between the two. The case of the Eastern Cape mother who killed her three children due to financial hardships clearly demonstrates the correlation between poverty and crime. Add lack of service from government then you have an even deadlier combination.

It seems no place is safe in the province as Sunday headlines tell a story of two women who were kidnapped — one on the N2 near Port St Johns and the other between Elliot and Barkly East last month. They were saved by her own captors who, in what is reminiscent of an episode of World’s Dumbest Criminals, accidentally sent a phone number in their “proof of life” picture to law enforcement as they sought a ransom.

Even with the recent extortion cases, the province features prominently, with inhumane incidents such as extortionists demanding payments from bereaved families at cemeteries as well as cuts of proceeds of funeral insurance. In Gqeberha, some families no longer want tents at funerals, as they reportedly attract criminals who rob mourners and demand a percentage of funeral policy payments. What a shame!

Last month, police told a briefing of parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) that only 7% of people arrested for extortion were convicted in the past five years. This was because a significant number of complainants withdrew their cases because they were either too scared to continue prosecuting the extortion mafia or lose interest along the way. With such a low conviction rate, there is no hope that the fight against this crime will go down any time soon.

The latest crime statistics reflect a decrease in kidnapping for ransom crimes in the Eastern Cape, but the province’s business sector is adamant that the numbers do not reflect what is happening on the ground. Eastern Cape Business Chamber president Vuyisile Ntlabati said many businesspeople feared reporting what had happened to them. “About 80% of the cases are not being reported. Once people open cases, they are immediately threatened. We believe the statistics are not a true reflection of the situation.”

Releasing crime statistics for the fourth quarter of 2023/24 and the first quarter of 2024/25, police minister Senzo Mchunu said 135 cases of kidnapping for ransom were recorded in the first quarter.

In a country where the average citizen has little to no faith in our police service and government, it is not surprising that those who feel abandoned for long may resort to such heinous crimes.

The province remains the most dangerous in the country, with it again showing the highest per capita murder ratio of 17.6 people per 100,000 in the Eastern Cape.

Groups of social factors have been universally attributed to crime. However, more emphasis is still placed on the social context in which the person functions.

It is unfortunate that the social and political change in South Africa has not yielded enough results to alleviate poverty in provinces such as the Eastern Cape. In her study of Crime in South Africa: Perceptions, fear and victimisation, Lorraine Glanz found that the increase in crime was “fuelled” by the escalating rate of unemployment.

“It would appear that, on the one hand, numerous individuals are 'using' political unrest as a smokescreen to commit ordinary crimes of murder, robbery and burglary and, on the other hand, persons who would not normally become involved in crime are 'forced' to do so purely due to economic need.”

She concluded that given the uncertain road ahead in South Africa in terms of the political and economic climate, it was impossible to predict what path crime rates would follow in the near future. “It would be unrealistic to assume that crime will decrease.” 

Criminal psychology has been fascinated and divided on the issue of nature versus nurture in criminal behaviour. It is a complex issue that includes morality, biological and chemical composition that may cause a person to function or reason a particular way. Many believe that a person’s tendency for criminal behaviour is influenced by a complex combination of both genetic dispositions and their experiences in their environment. 

In a country where the average citizen has little to no faith in our police service and government, it is not surprising that those who feel abandoned may resort to such heinous crimes as recently witnessed in the Eastern Cape — either to survive or “end it all” in the belief that things will not get better.

There is, therefore, no one answer to what is happening in the Eastern Cape, and other parts of the country, but we can all agree that witnessing so many senseless murders is torturous and needs to stop. 

Communities, academics and government should work together to prevent crime, make crime attracters less appealing and provide necessary resources — including education — to alleviate poverty. Otherwise, there will be no end to the utter catastrophe we’ve seen in the province that is already dealing with poverty and many other ills.