{"id":821572,"date":"2025-04-23T07:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T05:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=821572"},"modified":"2025-04-23T07:10:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T05:10:15","slug":"south-africas-murder-capital-under-siege-by-criminals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/821572\/south-africas-murder-capital-under-siege-by-criminals\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s murder capital under siege by criminals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa’s police ministry is closing in on Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan municipality, which has been ranked as the most violent city in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The metro, which has an annual murder rate of 70.8 per 100,000 people, has consistently ranked as the most violent city in the country based on SAPS data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also one of the most violent cities in the world, ranking 14th in the Mexican Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice’s annual top 50 ranking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has now engaged in high-level meetings with stakeholders in the city to explore ways to enhance crime fighting in the region and tackle its biggest issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the ministry, crime statistics show that violent crimes, kidnappings, extortion and gang-related activities remain the biggest points of concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extortion in particular has become a growing issue, and is often tied to the other forms of crime flagged by communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The region has seen several high-profile kidnappings in the past year, where Chinese and Pakistani nationals were explicitly targeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Places of worship have also been targeted by criminals, where congregants have been robbed during services. Most recently, a visiting US pastor was kidnapped and held for ransom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mchunu also met with the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber, which presented challenges faced by companies in the metro due to crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a wider problem in the Eastern Cape province, where crime levels have become so bad that investors are turning away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, extortion and the targeting of businesspeople through kidnappings have had a devastating impact on the province\u2019s economic prospects as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chamber’s CEO, Denise van Huyssteen, said that high poverty and unemployment levels contribute to criminality in the province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, she added that this is no excuse for poor policing, stressing that the SAPS must allocate more resources in the region or face an exodus of investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police minister also met with representatives from the Chinese community and religious leaders on ways to collaborate to combat these crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Various proposals were made as part of the engagements to supplement the strategic interventions currently in place to combat these crimes and improve public safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister promised to explore these proposals, saying that the safety of the communities impacted by crime is non-negotiable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The worst province in South Africa for violent crime<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

According to the latest crime statistics from the South African Police Service and Stats SA, the Eastern Cape has the highest levels of violent crime in two key categories: rape and murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the period under review\u2014October to December 2024\u2014the province recorded a murder rate of 19.6 per 100,000 people, above the 16.0 per 100,000 in the Western Cape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding rape, the province recorded a rate of 28.7 per 100,000 people, just above the Free State’s rate of 28.4 per 100,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Eastern Cape also had the highest rate of attempted sexual offences and stock theft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the levels of violence on an annual basis, the data compiled by the Mexican Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice<\/strong><\/a> in association with the Mexican Commission on Human Rights<\/strong><\/a>, puts the Eastern Cape’s murder rate at 70.8 per 100,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is above Cape Town’s murder rate at 70.2 per 100,000 people, and Durban’s 53.4 per 100,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, another city in the Eastern Cape\u2014East London, or Buffalo City metro municipality\u2014is also now ranked among the 50 most violent cities in the world, with a murder rate of 60.2 per 100,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For greater context, the average murder rate of the 50 worst cities in the world is 56.8 homicides per 100,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21 cities in the ranking are above that average rate, including every South African city except Joburg, which has a murder rate of 49.0 per 100,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kidnappings, which are showing an upward trend, are less prominent in the Eastern Cape compared to other provinces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are most prevalent in Gauteng, where they were recorded at a rate of 14.8 per 100,000 people over the three-month period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is almost double the rate recorded in KwaZulu-Natal (7.6), which ranks second. The Eastern Cape had the second lowest rate of kidnappings (3.1), just ahead of Limpopo (2.9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most cases of kidnappings are related to ransom demands, with extortion becoming a growing motive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The South African police are moving in on the Nelson Mandela Bay metro after a spate of high-profile kidnappings and high levels of rape and murder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":821602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[1910,3888,19613],"class_list":["post-821572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-crime","tag-saps","tag-senzo-mchunu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821572"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":821761,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821572\/revisions\/821761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}