South Africa is set to deploy its army to tackle rampant crime, a move described by President Cyril Ramaphosa as essential for the nation’s future. The deployment, an unusual step for Africa’s leading democracy, will target organised crime, gang violence, and illegal mining in areas plagued by some of the world’s highest rates of violent crime.
President Ramaphosa stated that soldiers would be sent to combat what he described as the “most immediate threat” to South Africa’s democracy and economic development. The operation will span three of the country’s nine provinces, though a specific timeline for the deployment has not been provided. However, the decision has drawn criticism, with some observers suggesting the army’s involvement signals an admission that the Ramaphosa government is struggling to control the escalating crime wave.
With a population of some 3.8 million, the stunningly beautiful Cape Town is South Africa’s second-largest city and one of its top tourist attractions.
But the neighborhoods on its outskirts, known as the Cape Flats, are notorious for deadly gang violence.
Street gangs with names such as the Americans, the Hard Livings and the Terrible Josters have for years battled for control of the illegal drug trade, while also being involved in extortion rackets, prostitution and contract killings.
Bystanders, including children, are often caught in the crossfire and killed in gang-related shootings. According to the latest crime statistics, South Africa’s three police precincts with the most serious crime rates are all in and around Cape Town.
Ramaphosa said one part of the army would deploy in the Western Cape province, where Cape Town is located and which statistics say has around 90% of the country’s gang-related killings.
Two other provinces, he said, would also see troop deployments: Gauteng, which is home to Johannesburg, South Africa’s biggest city, and the Eastern Cape province.
The outskirts of Johannesburg and the wider Gauteng province are dotted with abandoned mine shafts and authorities there have long grappled with illegal gold mining.
They say the mining gang, known as zama zamas, are typically run by heavily armed crime syndicates, brutal in protecting their operations. They use “informal miners” recruited from desperate and impoverished communities to go into the shafts, searching for leftover precious deposits.
These gangs are often connected to high-profile violence, including a 2022 case that shocked South Africa when around 80 alleged illegal miners were accused of gang raping eight women who were part of a music video shoot at an abandoned mine.
Last year, a standoff between police and illegal miners in an abandoned mine left at least 87 miners dead after police took a hard-line approach and cut off their food supplies in an attempt to force them out.
The illegal miners are often involved in other crimes in nearby communities, analysts say, and turf battles between rival gangs have forced people to leave their homes and seek safety elsewhere.
Authorities say there are an estimated 30,000 illegal miners in South Africa, operating in some of its 6,000 abandoned mine shafts.
