Cape Town, South Africa – Two ominous letters are spray-painted on a wall at the entrance to Tafelsig, a township in Mitchells Plain on the outskirts of Cape Town: HL – the insignia of the Hard Livings gang, which has threatened communities there for five decades.
Soon after President Cyril Ramaphosa's state of the nation address, in which he announced deploying the army to communities across South Africa to tackle crime, drugs and gangs, in Tafelsig – likely part of the new military operation – most people seem unbothered by the news.
Mitchells Plain is on the Cape Flats – a series of densely populated, impoverished townships about 30km southeast of the wealthy city centre. While the city boasts tourists and expensive real estate, the Cape Flats accounts for the highest rate of gang-related killings in the country.
'When it was at its worst, [there was a shooting] almost every day,' said Michael Jacobs, chairperson of a local community police forum.
Last week, four people, including a nine-month-old, were shot and killed in a drug den in Athlone, about 17km away. A beloved Muslim cleric rumoured to have angered a gang leader over a personal dispute was also shot dead on the first day of Ramadan as he was leaving a nearby mosque.
Tafelsig residents now await the probable arrival of uniformed soldiers and armed vehicles in their neighbourhood, but have little hope it will make a difference.
In his February 12 speech, Ramaphosa said he would deploy the army to the Western Cape, the province that includes the Cape Flats, and Gauteng, home to Johannesburg, to tackle gang violence and illegal mining. On February 17, Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia announced the Eastern Cape would be added and deployment would occur in 10 days – though no soldiers have so far been deployed.
The president's decision followed pressure from civil society groups and the Democratic Alliance (DA) party, which runs the Western Cape, to take drastic action against gang-related violence in the three provinces.
In the latest crime statistics, police announced the arrests of 15,846 suspects nationwide and the seizure of 173 firearms and 2,628 rounds of ammunition from February 16 to Sunday alone.
Overall, South Africa has some of the world's most violent crime with an average of 64 people killed every day, according to official statistics.
Source: www.aljazeera.com