While a number of motives are behind the 57 murders committed in South Africa every day, an analysis of the recent crime statistics shows gang-related activity, taxi-related conflicts and mob justice contributing more to the increasing trend.
Here are 8 things you need to know about SA’s #CrimeStats:
1. The statistics, released on Tuesday, 973 gang-related murders occurring in South Africa between April 1 last year to March 31 this year, the majority of these (808) occurring in the Western Cape.
2. As the crime rate increases, communities are becoming even more frustrated with police, taking the law into their own hands as evidenced by the number of people killed in vigilante killings.
3. Some 849 people were killed in cases police classify as mob justice, 264 of them in Gauteng, 173 in the Western Cape, 145 in KwaZulu-Natal, 95 in Limpopo, 83 in Mpumalanga, and 72 in the Eastern Cape.
4. There were 237 taxi-related killings, 110 of them in Gauteng, 45 in the Western Cape, 39 in the Eastern Cape, and 36 in KwaZulu-Natal.
5. Murders connected to illegal mining in South Africa stood at 94, with 65 of them occurring in the Free State and 23 in Gauteng.
6. There were 62 people killed on farms or smallholdings, 12 in Gauteng, nine each in the North West and Limpopo, eight each in the Free State and Mpumalanga, seven in KwaZulu-Natal, and three each in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Northern Cape.
7. The killing of police officers, many of them to obtain their firearms, stood at 85, with 28 in Gauteng, 19 in KwaZulu-Natal, 13 in the Eastern Cape and eight in the Free State.
8. Politically-motivated murders totalled 32, with the majority of them (30) experienced in KwaZulu-Natal.
– African News Agency (ANA)
