Cape Town - The recent mass killings that claimed the lives of at least 18 people in one day last week are a grim reminder of the state of affairs in our communities, and that the fight against crime is long lost.
The criminals are in charge while the government, in particular Police Minister Bheki Cele, is clueless as to what needs to be done.
That no one has been arrested for Wednesday’s shootings in KwaMashu in KwaZulu-Natal, OR Tambo District, Eastern Cape and Mfuleni in Cape Town is indicative of the police’s lack of ability and capability to act with urgency in bringing ruthless criminals to book.
Any murder, let alone mass killings where three people or more have been killed, should receive top priority, with those behind it arrested within hours of the incident.
In the KwaMashu incident, at least 20 heavily armed suspects stormed a hostel and killed four people. Five more were wounded.
In the neighbouring Eastern Cape, 10 were killed in two separate incidents that evening. The first was in the Thantseka location where gunmen entered a homestead and killed a 62-year-old woman and her 13-year-old grandson.
They then proceeded to the second house and shot and killed a 44-year-old woman, the daughter of the elderly woman.
In Qunu, the birthplace of our beloved Madiba, seven people – four men and three women between the ages of 32 and 46 years old – were killed.
Also that evening, four people were shot and killed in an informal settlement in Mfuleni. Following a night of gunshots, residents woke up to two bodies – a man and a woman – with gunshot wounds in a shack.
A few metres inside another shack, two more bodies, of a man and a woman, were found with gunshot wounds. Indeed, this reads like a horror movie, except here it’s real lives.
The brazenness of these attacks suggests that the authority of the state does not exist.
People are killed in their places of residence where they are supposed to be safe, while Cele only shows up the following day for TV cameras, to act like he is in charge.
The fact that even his boss Ramaphosa praises such mediocrity sends shivers down the spine.
If Cele survives this upcoming Cabinet reshuffle, South Africans, you are really on your own ... as you always have been!
Cape Times