Johannesburg - South Africa is facing an increase in gun violence and, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, there are about 3.8 million unregistered, illegal firearms in circulation in South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
This past weekend was a bloody one, with hip-hop maestro AKA, real name Kiernan Forbes, and his friend and former manager Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane gunned down outside a popular eatery on Durban’s Florida Road on Friday evening. The SAPS has mounted a manhunt for the gunmen, with images of the two of them caught on CCTV doing the rounds on social media.
On the same night, a traditional healer was also shot and killed in KwaZulu-Natal.
Four people between 20 and 25 died and three others were injured in a mass shooting in Kwazakhele township in the Eastern Cape in the early hours on Sunday. About three weeks ago, eight people were shot and killed in the township and three others were wounded at a birthday celebration when two unknown gunmen entered a yard and opened fire on the guests.
Two weeks ago, 10 people were gunned down in separate incidents in the OR Tambo District. Ward 19 councillor Gamelihle Maqula said communities were very tense and people were scared because they don’t know what to expect any more.
“We’ve been calling for the police minister to come down, not only to come here and talk but to } ensure that he puts measures in place, such as deploying the police tactical response unit, because there are too many guns here in the wrong hands. So we want the unit to come back to this community. We want this city closed to ensure that we recover all these unlicensed firearms,” Maqula said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, during his State of the Nation Address on Thursday, conceded that violent crime is taking its toll on every South African and that the government wants to combat crime.
Ian Cameron, director of community safety at Action Society, said he does not think the president has the political will to solve this.
“Ramaphosa spoke about crime as being an afterthought at Sona, and they get the impression that everything is under control, but that is not the reality of what we feel and what we see on the ground.”
Cameron said the killing of AKA was a hit.
“A tragic reminder in AKA’s hit, and I am saying hit because the evidence that we’ve seen so far clearly indicates that, but that is my opinion,” he said.
He said, on average, 72 people were murdered every single day.
“What bothers me about this is that we don’t see certain politicians, especially from the governing party, coming forward about those 72 ordinary South Africans.
“It seems that they are forced to speak and only come out when a prominent person is targeted, and obviously, it’s too little, too late. We are facing the scourge of violent crime, and I believe it’s going to get far worse within the next few years,” Cameron said.
Gun Free South Africa director Adele Kirsten said the killing of AKA and others was shocking and a reminder that in an instant, with the pull of a trigger, families’ lives were devastated.
“It is a reminder that unless our government acts decisively and develops a clear strategy to deal with the issue, this will happen again and again, whether it’s a mass shooting or what appears to be an assassination, whether it’s young men killing others or their partners,” said Kirsten.
She said the sad reality was that the two were well known, but 28 other people were shot and killed on Friday, and the country does not know them, and their families were suffering the same loss. “Our gun violence has gone viral,” she said.
SAPS spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said police were intensifying operations to detect and remove illegal firearms and ammunition from the hands of criminals.
She said police have in the past 12 months permanently removed 65 519 firearms from circulation. These were firearms, most of which included handguns, rifles and shotguns, as well as firearm parts and combination firearms. These had either been seized in crime-prevention and intelligence driven operations, voluntarily surrendered or forfeited to the state in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 Firearms Amnesty period.
“Illegal firearms pose a threat to the safety and security of the inhabitants of this country.
“The service therefore remains confident that destroying these firearms will ensure that they are permanently removed from circulation, and lives spared,” Mathe said.
The Star