This archive report was first published on 19 July 2019.
On July 18, 2019, South African soldiers were deployed to gang-ridden Cape Town suburbs to help quell escalating violence that has killed hundreds this year.
According to Reuters and community activists, the deployment was part of a broader effort to address the high rates of gang-related violence in the area.
Western Cape provincial officials reported that over 2,000 people had been killed in the past seven months, with almost half of those deaths being gang-related.
The South African National Defence Force deployed a battalion with support elements to communities in the Cape Flats, an area known for high rates of unemployment and drug abuse that have fueled gang activity.
Community leaders, such as Kader Jacobs, chairman of the Manenberg Community Policing Forum, expressed mixed views on the deployment.
“For an hour and a half they targeted houses and cordoned off some streets...They did some raids with the anti-gang unit and the local police,” Jacobs said of the army deployment.
However, Jacobs also noted that the deployment was brief, lasting only an hour and a half, and that the community had expected a longer presence.
A Reuters cameraman followed the convoy of armoured personnel carriers, with an estimated 200 soldiers, from Manenberg to another crime hotspot, Hanover Park.
Both areas were built more than 50 years ago during the apartheid era to house mixed-race families displaced from suburbs designated whites-only.
The entrenched gang culture in the area has led to thousands of young men belonging to street gangs with names like “Hard Living” and “Young Americans”.
Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula expressed hope that the army deployment would deter further gang violence, stating, “It will have to be robust in the beginning to stabilize the situation and have an element of surprise.”
The deployment of several hundred soldiers to gang strongholds will take place from July to October, although the “exit strategy” would be determined by intelligence gathering.
