Teenage girl killed in gang crossfire: DA and ANC play politics while Western Cape children suffer

19 April 2024

The Western Cape is experiencing a level of gang-related violence that is unprecedented in the 30 years of democracy. 

Not only is the violence out of control, but it is spilling out of traditionally gang-ravaged communities. In the last 24 hours two people tragically lost their lives in separate incidents in Belgravia, a relatively middle-class suburb of Athlone – including an entirely innocent Grade 11 girl who was tragically killed in gang crossfire this afternoon.

Neither the national police force nor the considerable crime fighting resources of the province and City of Cape Town are having any impact. 

Instead, it is volunteers who join neighbourhood watches and other anti-crime initiatives, who do most of the work, call the ambulances, pick up the bodies and reassure traumatised members of communities that they are not on their own. 

But even the neighbourhood watches are being politicised in Cape Town. Those who demonstrate commitment to the DA are funded and supported, but not the other lot… Neighbourhood watches are a community’s first line of defence. They play a critical role, and should be properly resourced irrespective of political consideration. 

Meanwhile, as families hide behind drawn curtains and locked doors across most of Cape Town, the DA Premier of the Province and Mayor of the City are on the election trail selling their message that this is the best-run province and city in the country.

Best run for who, Mr Winde? 

The DA released a music video today of their leading crime-fighters, MEC Regan Allen and Mayco Member JP Smith, dancing in a crowd of blue t-shirts in front of a typical block of rental flats on the Cape Flats – precisely the kind of community that continues to suffer the ravages of destitution, neglect and crime.

On Wednesday, at a meeting in Hanover Park, an irate member of the community accused Minister of Police Bheki Cele of making new promises after not keeping the promises made before the last election.

“Mr Faiz said he blamed the ANC. The ANC is blaming the DA. While you guys are playing politics our kids are dying… For three years and nine months you feel nothing for us. Then the three months before elections you all pitch up, which is so unfair to us.”

The level of crime in Cape Town is abnormal. The unsafe, unhygienic and un-developmental conditions in which people live, in gang-infested areas, where the apartheid government put them, is abnormal. To have the leader of the province telling anyone who’ll listen that the province is exceptionally good, is abnormal.

Until those in charge of Cape Town and the province accept their responsibilities to address apartheid’s legacy, and provide proper services to poorer people to left the false ceilings on their lives and enable them to develop their way out of poverty, gangs will continue to proliferate. And the suffering won’t stop.

Issued by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General & Member of Parliament, 19 April 2024