Cape Town’s notorious Hard Livings gang has set up base in Durban where they have launched a full-scale drug war on a local gang that has resulted in a spate of murders in recent weeks.
Community members in Sydenham say more than 20 people have been killed in the past three months, as HL skollies try to take over the drug trade from the Sydenham Heights Boys.
The latest victims in the drug war are 22-year-old Larvice Nashiville and 24-year-old Roberta Sing, who were gunned down by five men in Georgehill Road on Sunday.
It is believed that the attack was in retaliation for another shooting just days earlier.
A 28-year-old man from Cape Town survived the shooting after taking a bullet to the chest.
Robert Sing, the father of Roberta, said his daughter was pregnant and had two other children, aged five and two, who lived with their grandmother.
He said Roberta was living with her boyfriend in Georgehill Road and admitted that she had “gone off the rails” with drugs.
“She was shot in the back of the head,” he said.
“To see my daughter like that, to see a mother’s heart shattered was a painful experience.
“Her two children will not get to know her and that for us as a family is hard to come to terms with…
“We have to ask ourselves where are the police in all of this?
“People are dying over R30 worth of drugs because there are just no jobs and they are desperate.”
The recent murders are part of a growing list that stretches back almost five years when the HLs first moved into Sydenham.
IOL, through interviews with police sources, community members and gang affiliates has established that the Hard Livings gangsters – known locally as the “Kaapies” – were brought to Durban by a local drug kingpin who lived in Cape Town and formed a relationship with former leader Rashied Staggie.
Staggie was gunned down in Salt River in Cape Town in 2019.
It is alleged that the local kingpin brought in more than 30 Hard Living gangsters to Sydenham after several of his drug “shops” were robbed.
Scores of gangsters from both sides have been killed in recent years and there are fears that the drug war is only going to escalate in the coming weeks.
“There have been occasions where the gangsters are shooting at each other for more than three hours and not a single policeman will come, yet the police station is just up the road,” a resident of Sydenham Heights told IOL.
“These gun fights happen sometimes no more than 200m apart.
“When this happens, everyone just locks themselves up.
“People are terrified and we feel like there is no help for us.”
KZN Police Media Centre have not yet responded to questions about the spate of gang murders.
IOL