South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced the deployment of the military to combat gang violence and illegal mining in three provinces. The decision follows a surge in gang-related murders and high-profile crimes. President Cyril Ramaphosa stated that soldiers would be sent to combat what he described as the 'most immediate threat' to South Africa’s democracy and economic development.
The deployment will target organised crime, gang violence, and illegal mining in areas plagued by some of the world's highest rates of violent crime. According to police data, last year there were more than 1,037 gang-related murders in the wider Western Cape province, which is 16% higher than in 2024. Ramaphosa said one part of the army would deploy in the Western Cape province, where Cape Town is located and which statistics say has around 90% of the country's gang-related killings.
My son's life was never, never ever the same again.
Two other provinces, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape, will also see troop deployments. The operation will span three of South Africa’s nine provinces, though a specific timeline for the deployment has not been provided. The decision has drawn criticism, with some observers suggesting the army's involvement signals an admission that the Ramaphosa government is struggling to control the escalating crime wave.
Many community members were sceptical of the military deployment, noting that when the army was sent into the Cape Flats in 2019, gangsters merely laid low before returning. The neighborhoods on Cape Town's outskirts, known as the Cape Flats, are notorious for deadly gang violence. Street gangs with names such as the Americans, the Hard Livings and the Terrible Josters have for years battled for control of the illegal drug trade, while also being involved in extortion rackets, prostitution and contract killings.
I said to myself, 'He is also somebody's child.'
Bystanders, including children, are often caught in the crossfire and killed in gang-related shootings. According to the latest crime statistics, South Africa's three police precincts with the most serious crime rates are all in and around Cape Town. The outskirts of Johannesburg and the wider Gauteng province are dotted with abandoned mine shafts and authorities there have long grappled with illegal gold mining.
Illegal mining gangs, known as zama zamas, are typically run by heavily armed crime syndicates, brutal in protecting their operations. These gangs use 'informal miners' recruited from desperate and impoverished communities to go into the shafts, searching for leftover precious deposits. These gangs are often connected to high-profile violence, including a 2022 case where around 80 alleged illegal miners were accused of gang raping eight women who were part of a music video shoot at an abandoned mine.
Last year, a standoff between police and illegal miners in an abandoned mine left at least 87 miners dead after police cut off their food supplies in an attempt to force them out. The illegal miners are often involved in other crimes in nearby communities, and turf battles between rival gangs have forced people to flee their homes.