South Africa witnessed a 10-percent spike in the number of murder cases during the third quarter of 2022, Police Minister Bheki Cele has revealed.
Addressing journalists in Pretoria, Cele said more than 7,500 people were murdered between October and December 2022.
“Out of the 7,555 people murdered in the three months of reporting, some 3,144 people were killed with a firearm and 2,498 people were killed with other weapons such as knives, sharp and blunt instruments, bricks and in many cases mere bare hands,” Cele said
He attributed rising crime in the country to high unemployment, rising poverty, mushrooming informal settlements with little to no services and other socio-economic ills.
Another factor contributing to rising crime is the high number of undocumented foreign nationals who are hard to trace after the commission of a crime.
“The violence that is stalking communities is translated to increased number of assaults, which escalate to attempted murders and, in some cases, to murder itself. The reality is assaults are feeders of domestic violence and other violent crimes,” he said.
The minister called for an “intense community-centred” and intelligence led-solution to fully address the proliferation of firearms in the country.
“Someone, somewhere, somehow, knows something about hidden weapons. Police are also on the pulse in removing illegal weapons off our streets,” he said.
In the past year alone, police permanently removed and destroyed 65,519 firearms, he added.
NM/jn/APA