A recent mass shooting in a Johannesburg informal settlement, which claimed 12 lives, has underscored a disturbing pattern of violence in South Africa’s most deprived communities, attributed by experts to the unchecked rise of organised crime amid significant police failings.
The attack, carried out by multiple suspects in a shantytown, also left at least 15 people wounded, according to authorities. No arrests have yet been made in connection with the incident.
This surge in violence comes despite the president’s earlier decision to deploy the army to several hotspots this year, an unusual measure aimed at tackling organised crime. Critics viewed this move as an implicit acknowledgement that the police force in Africa’s most developed nation was struggling to maintain control in these areas.
Compounding these challenges, the South African police service has been plagued by widespread allegations of corruption and complicity with criminal syndicates. This has led to the arrest of over a dozen senior officers and the suspension of high-ranking officials, including the police minister and the national police commissioner, highlighting a deep-seated crisis within law enforcement.
Recent mass shootings — including two in December that left more than 20 people dead — have occurred in poor areas away from city centers where organized crime gangs take advantage of conditions like a lack of security, poor lighting and slow police responses, experts say.
“Criminal syndicates explicitly capitalize on this to hide weapons, execute hits, and vanish into the shadows,” Jacob Mofokeng, a professor of criminology at the University of South Africa, told The Associated Press.
South Africa has very high levels of violent crime, with the most recent annual statistics showing an average of more than 60 homicides a day.
But the vast majority of killings occur in poor townships or informal settlements. South Africa has a long history of deep inequality that is reflected in its crime: rich neighborhoods have much lower violent crime rates.
Illegal mining gangs have long been a problem in and around South Africa’s largest city of Johannesburg, which has some of the biggest gold reserves in the world.
The gangs are notorious and known as zama zamas — which translates roughly as “hustlers” or “chance-takers” in the Zulu language. They establish bases in impoverished and poorly policed areas and fight turf battles with other gangs or use violence to hold control in those areas.
Mining gangs often include migrants from neighboring countries who are in South Africa illegally, according to authorities.
That makes it hard for police to track down suspects as they have “no legal identification, no registered address, and no fingerprints or DNA profile,” said Mofokeng. “They are effectively a ghost.”
South Africa’s government has said it loses more than $3 billion a year to illicit mining. Zama zamas have been a problem for decades and were one of the reasons South African President Cyril Ramaphosa authorized a yearlong deployment of troops on the streets to fight organized crime in specific areas across the country.
Residents in the Johannesburg neighborhood hit by this week’s mass shooting said illegal mining gangs were known to operate there. Police said the motive for the shooting was not known, but mining gangs were a focus of the investigation.
South Africa has strict regulations controlling the legal ownership of firearms, but there are around 2 million to 3 million illegal guns circulating in a country of 62 million people, according to independent studies and civil society organizations.
Guns are by far the most common cause of homicides.
Willem Els, an analyst at South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies, said the flow of illegal guns and police failures led to an ideal environment for criminality.
“In South Africa, we actually managed to create conditions that are very conducive for violent crime and also for organized crime syndicates to operate with impunity,” he told the AP. “We’ve got a lot of unregistered firearms that are not being controlled by the police.”
Analysts say police in South Africa are underresourced, but allegations of corruption in the force have also seriously undermined its credibility.
South Africa has had police corruption problems before. A new allegation last year by a provincial police commander that top officers and officials were colluding with organized criminals led President Ramaphosa to announce a national investigation into police corruption. That has resulted in a wave of arrests of senior police officers.
Private investigator and security specialist Mike Bolhuis said police corruption has implications for on-ground policing in those areas impacted by violent crime as citizens are sometimes hesitant to give out information or help authorities.
“The public doesn’t trust the police, they don’t trust the authorities, and they don’t trust each other,” Bolhuis said.
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