{"id":825378,"date":"2025-05-23T13:38:21","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T11:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=825378"},"modified":"2025-05-23T13:38:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T11:38:54","slug":"the-one-province-in-south-africa-where-murder-is-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/825378\/the-one-province-in-south-africa-where-murder-is-on-the-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"The one province in South Africa where murder is on the rise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa has seen a significant decline in murders since the start of 2025, with the Northern Cape the only province to see an increase in its murder rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest crime stats from the South African Police Service for the first three months of 2025 show that the number of murders in South Africa dropped by 12.4% to 5,727 murders since the beginning of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a vast improvement from the same period in 2022, 2023 and 2024, where murders totalled over 6,000 for the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The murder rate per 100,000 has also dropped from 10.6 in 2024 to 9.1 in 2025. However, this remains above the 8.3 seen in the same period in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to murder, the Eastern Cape remains the most dangerous province. Per every 100,000 people, 15.4 people are murdered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this is far lower than the 17.4 recorded in the same period in 2024, and beats the 2022 level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Western Cape had the second-highest murder rate at 14.2, a decrease from the 15 seen in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KwaZulu-Natal completed the top three but saw a huge drop from 12.4 in 2024 to 10.0 in 2025. Gauteng also saw a decline from 9.7 to 8.5 and remained in fourth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, South Africa’s least populated province, the Northern Cape, saw a significant increase in its murder rate, rising from 6.8 per 100,000 to 8.3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite being a relatively small number compared to other provinces, the Northern Cape’s total number of murders increased by 23.1% to 112.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given their larger populations, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal saw the largest number of murders at 1,439 and 1,193, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police Minister Senzo Mchunu noted that although the Northern Cape contributes only 2% to the total murder statistics, the increase cannot be ignored and will be addressed with targeted actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of the Northern Cape, all other provinces in South Africa, including the Free State, Mpumalanga, North West and Limpopo, saw notable increases in their murder rates. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Source: SAPS<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Overall drop in crimes<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On top of murders, South Africa has also generally seen a significant decrease in crimes across the country over the quarter, with only two overall increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerningly, reported rape cases increased by 0.3% to 10,688 cases reported, while contact sexual offences also increased by 21% to 236 over the quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that many sexual offences often go unreported in South Africa, the figures are likely far worse in a country plagued by extreme abuse of women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are, however, some relatively bright sparks for South Africa, with attempted murder, common assault, common robbery and robbery with aggravating circumstances all seeing a decrease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall contact crimes, which are crimes against a person, declined by 5.8% to 161,672 over the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number of carjacking cases decreased by a massive 15.1% to 4,533 in the country. Robbery of cash in transit also declined by five incidents to 35. Truck hijacking also dropped by 99 to 359 cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robbery at residential premises also declined by 0.4% to 5,516 cases, and at non-residential premises, it declined by a notable 23.4% to 3,298. <\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

No Genocide <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Following the meeting with US President Donald Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Mchunu criticised the claims of a “white genocide” in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mchunu said that the term “genocide” is distinctly foreign and strange, adding that lots of material has been put into circulation by the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have respect for the USA as a country, we have respect for the people in that country and for President Trump, but we have no respect for this genocide story at all,” said Mchunu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It is totally unfounded and unsubstantiated…We do not deny that the levels of crime in the country are high; we are very concerned.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An example used by Trump and his team showed a picture of many crosses on both sides of a dirt road, which he claimed were mass graves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this was not the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crosses were erected following the murder of Mr G Rafferty and Mrs VL Rafferty in 2020. The incident led to a strong protest from the farming community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mchunu stressed that the crosses symbolised killings on farms over the years; they are not graves. Three suspects were sentenced for the murder and are in jail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that crime cuts across all divides, and that SAPS is intensifying the fight against crime and criminals. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa has seen an overall decline in crime rates, but the nation’s largest province has actually seen an increase in its murder rate. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":825388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[22638,21998,3888],"class_list":["post-825378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-mchunu","tag-northern-cape","tag-saps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825378","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=825378"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":825394,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825378\/revisions\/825394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/825388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}