Cape Town – Delft has the second-highest murder rate in the country according to the most recent crime statistics. Its Community Policing Forum (CPF) had been hoping the crime rate would drop significantly during the 21-day lockdown.
Ominously, a 15-year-old girl, alone at home after her parents left for work, was gang-raped in Delft yesterday morning.
According to CPF chairperson Charles George, it's "business as usual in the townships on the Cape Flats", with the streets crowded with people in an area where 500 000 people are living in a place meant for only 50 000. The lockdown has reportedly not him home in several parts of Mitchells Plain, where a traffic officer can be seen in a video posted on Facebook pleading with residents surrounding her vehicle to adhere to the lockdown rules.
Western Cape police spokesperson Captain FC van Wyk confirmed on Friday that a 15-year-old girl had been gang-raped.
"Four suspects have been arrested. The victim is receiving medical and psychological assistance," Van Wyk said.
Commenting on the gang rape, George said: "From the CPF side, we were totally devastated when the news was given to us yesterday of the girl being gang-raped.
"We are already facing a national crisis and this is totally unacceptable. We hope that the crime level will drop while we are under lockdown and we are hoping that these things will never happen again in our communities.
"Because this 15-year-old girl had her whole life ahead of her."
George isn't overly optimistic, however, that there will be a drastic reduction in crime or of keeping the coronavirus infection rate down.
"Most parts of Delft are as per normal. Either people are ignorant or they are not well informed or there is something definitely wrong, because it looks as if it's business as usual in the townships," George told the Cape Times.
"The shops are closing their doors and only allowing a certain amount of people in and everyone has to queue outside and the queues are quite long.
"The spaza shops were given the green light to stay open and obviously your Shoprites and so on. It's payday and everyone wants to stock up and there is panic buying happening.
"The fear of the government was that with the current infrastructure in the townships, there will be no control with the coronavirus and the people in the townships are seemingly not aware of this.
"People are making a joke of this, saying this only happens in China. But when the deaths are going to start coming, there is going to be a domino effect if people are not careful out there.
"It doesn't matter how much visible policing you have, you can't cover all areas."