Pretoria - Mabopane residents are living in fear of criminals, who terrorise locals at a passage between two small bushy wetlands used mostly at night by train commuters.
This is according to community leaders and patrollers, Sam Masango and Sipho Mthimunye, who said they were tired of criminals targeting commuters and shoppers coming from Mabopane train station and the Central City Shopping Centre.
They said the area is right behind the shopping centre, and was used by a lot of people as a reasonable short cut to sections of Mabopane, Winterveldt and Soshanguve, and young people who travel to sports grounds in the various townships for soccer matches.
“Unfortunately it has become a hunting spot for criminals, who are quick at robbing people of their belongings and disappearing before they can call for help.
“We do patrol the problematic areas, but this one we know late in the evening it is a nightmare for our people. To make matters worse, it is walking distance from Loate police station.
“The criminals are also very clever, they know when we are not there as we have to patrol the other parts of our section here in Winterveldt. And residents have lost faith in the police; people lose their phones and important devices and they do not even bother to go and report thefts because they do not believe anything positive will happen,” said Mthimunye.
He added that one of the reasons they have lost confidence in the police was that even when they were patrolling, they do stop police vans and inform the officers if a tavern was playing loud music after curfew, but they just did nothing about it; something they thought encouraged lawlessness.
Last year, the Tshwane EFF leader marched with locals to the police station, demanding that the police must improve and aid the people who had lost hope, because of crimes that were not convincingly investigated, and to investigate allegations of corrupt officials ruining the reputation of the station.
Anna Bopape said being a woman and having to use the passage was very scary and dangerous, especially in a country plagued by the scourge of gender-based violence.
Morena Matema said: “This place is very dangerous, and one could easily undermine it.
“But if you look at this long vegetation growing in the wetlands, you can just see that a person can be robbed without intervention. We just want our people to be safe.”
Loate police spokesperson Martin Maphosa said they would issue a comment on this matter.
The police have, however, encouraged residents to always report crimes and not assume nothing will be done because of how they feel about the police in their area.
This was also reiterated by Police Minister Bheki Cele last year when he visited Mabopane to listen to the people’s frustrations following the assassination of ANC councillor Tshepo Motaung.
Pretoria News