CRIME NEWS - Of the 25 423 people murdered in South Africa between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, 4 467 murders were committed in the Western Cape.
Another 4 804 people were murdered in our neighbouring Eastern Cape, the province with the highest murder rate in the country.
The Eastern Cape also has the highest rape rate in South Africa, with a ratio of 24,7 individuals per 100 000 raped from April last year until the end of March this year.
As rampant crime remains out of control across South Africa, the police lost over 8 400 detectives between 2016 and 2023, shrinking from 26 000 to just 17 600 - and the number of detectives continues to decline.
Although there was a slight decrease in serious crimes in the Western Cape, 72 000 serious crimes were reported, with more than 30 000 of these being contact crimes.
The DA in the Western Cape says although there was a 4% reduction in murders in the province with 44 fewer lives lost, the sheer volume of crime in the province remains a massive concern.
Many murder hotspots in Western Cape
The DA says several police precincts in the Western Cape remain among the country’s top 10 murder hotspots.
This includes Delft, which recorded a 1,5% increase, Mfuleni with an 8,3% increase, and Gugulethu, which saw 27 more murder cases. "Particularly alarming is the 63,9% spike in murders in Philippi East - an unacceptable and devastating escalation."
The party says a notable bright spot is Mitchells Plain that has dropped out of the top 30 police stations for murder in the country, after ranking at number 12 in the previous quarter. The DA says this is one of the areas with a sizeable LEAP deployment.
Thomas Walters, DA Western Cape Spokesperson on Police Oversight and Community Safety, calls on the National Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu and the SAPS leadership to urgently prioritise the Western Cape in its national resourcing strategy.
"This must include the immediate deployment of additional officers, the provision of adequate vehicles and equipment, and the expansion of specialised investigative and intelligence units to high-risk precincts.
"We are requesting a clear action plan from SAPS within 90 days, detailing how these resources will be allocated and timelines for implementation."
Walters says where progress in the province has been made, it has been through proactive local initiatives like Leap. "But, these efforts cannot succeed alone. National government must now step up and show that it is serious about tackling violent crime in this province."
Data debunks white genocide myth
Brett Herron, Good secretary-general, says the statistics paint a devastating picture. "A staggering 25 423 people were murdered in just 12 months - an average of 69 lives lost every single day.
These are not just numbers, they are lives cut short, families shattered, communities terrorised. No spin, no minor percentage shift can obscure the scale of this tragedy."
He says one critical point stands out - the truth behind the white genocide myth.
"Of the 25 423 murders recorded nationwide, just 358 took place on agricultural land, including farms, plots, and small holdings.
Only 42 of these involved individuals classified as part of the farming community, currently limited to commercial farms.
"In response to persistent disinformation, the statistics for the fourth quarter were further broken down by race. Of the farm owners murdered during this period, both were African. Additionally, the two farm employees and one farm manager killed were also African."
Herron says of the six individuals classified as part of the farming community during this quarter, only one, a farm dweller, was white.
"Let us be clear, no murder is acceptable. Every life matters. But to claim that there is a deliberate campaign targeting white South African farmers amounts to a dangerous distortion of reality. The definition of genocide is the deliberate extermination of a national, racial, or ethnic group. The data simply does not support that narrative."
It's war on the Cape Flats
On the issue of gang-related murders he said these are not a footnote; they are the headline. "In just the last quarter alone, 208 lives were claimed by gang activity. Over the full financial year, that number rose to 882 gang-related killings in the Western Cape.
To put this in context: of the 1 025 gang-related murders reported nationally, 86% happened in one province."
He says according to the 2022 Census, the Western Cape is home to less than 12% of the country’s population, yet it bears the weight of nearly nine in ten gang murders in South Africa. "This is not just a crime problem. It’s a policy failure. It’s a collapse of prevention, intervention, and protection."
Herron says for years, Premier Alan Winde has claimed the Western Cape Safety Plan will halve the murder rate in ten years. "Well six years into the plan that has already cost billions and we see an average year-on-year murder increase of 2.48%.
"We must start to call this what it is - a war. And the state is either losing it, or not truly fighting it. The province has a murder problem. But even more urgently, it has a gang murder problem.
"Until we address the root causes, poverty, unemployment, broken education systems, housing precarity, and the deep legacies of apartheid spatial planning, we will be here again next year. Mourning more names and digging more graves.
"Murder has a favourite face in the Western Cape. And unless we act, that face will keep looking younger."
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