Cape Town - Community Safety and Police Oversight MEC Reagen Allen is expected to visit the Khayelitsha Site B police station this morning.
Allen’s visit comes after yet another mass killing in Khayelitsha, where six people were shot and killed in Site C last night.
Police spokesperson Novela Potelwa said organised crime detectives have since opened several murder dockets for investigation.
She said: “Five yet-to-be identified men where shot and killed and a sixth person died at a medical facility in Khayelitsha on Sunday evening.
“Initial police reports from the scene indicate police were called out to the corner of Maphongwana and Idada Street in Site C after 8 pm on Sunday.
“Upon their arrival offices discovered the bodies of the five victims who had been shot. The sixth victim had been rushed to hospital, but was declared dead on arrival.”
Potelwa said crime detectives are hard at work to determine the motive behind the mass killings.
Details of the deceased persons are currently being determined.
The latest mass shooting comes after 11 people were shot dead in two separate incidents back in March.
At the time of the second shooting, Guy Lamb, a criminologist at Stellenbosch University’s political science department, said the situation in the area was worrying.
“We don’t quite know what’s going on. Obviously, availability of firearms and ammunition in the hands of gangs and groups that are willing to use them is a great concern, and that’s obviously a common denominator,” Lamb said.
He said it was indicated that the shooting was gang related.
"We often see gangs throughout Cape Town. We've seen in a number of areas not only in Khayelitsha, where gangs want to assert their authority, showing dominance if there are potentially other gangs operating in those areas,“ Lamb said.
He said a gang would assert dominance through random shootings.
“So we often see the sort of random shootings because a gang wants to take control of an area and they want to demonstrate that they can use extreme violence to gain access to specific areas," he said.
"We have seen some of these areas where new settlements sprang up during the state of national disaster and it's quite difficult for landowners and the City to evict illegal occupants, we often see these sort of informal criminal networks operating, trying to seize control of specific areas and extract rents and payments from residents. So that's also entirely a possibility."
Anyone with information can contact Crime Stop anonymously at 08600 10111 or via the MySAPS app.