Crime Stats: Murder shoots up by 1 056 in 3 months with an overall 20.7 % increase from last year

Picture: Henk Kruger/African News Agency (ANA) Archives

Picture: Henk Kruger/African News Agency (ANA) Archives

Published Nov 19, 2021

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Cape Town - The rate of murders in South Africa increased by 20,7% in the three-month period between July and September compared to last year, with an overall increase of 1 056 cases.

Announcing the crime statistics for the second quarter on Friday, Police Minister Bheki Cele said 6 163 people were killed in total.

Major-General Norman Sekhukune who said that most contact crimes like murder, rape and attempted murder had also increased, said there were 450 more murder cases in July , 385 in August and 221 in September.

Only the Western Cape recorded a decrease of two cases less than the 1013 reported in the same period last year.

KwaZulu-Natal was leading with 356 cases, followed by Gauteng at 229, Eastern Cape with 83, Free State with 62, North West had 51 cases, Limpopo stood at 43, Mpumalanga at 37, and the Northern Cape recorded 17 cases.

Among the top 30 police stations were: Inanda, Umlazi, Delft, Mfuleni, Plessislaer, Kraaifontein, Harare, KwaMashu, Khayelitsha, and Nyanga.

The causes varied from arguments, revenge, robbery, gang related, vigilantism, death in line of duty, intervention in a fight, taxi related, rape related, commission of another crime and illicit mining.

The sample showed that there were 5176 murder counts, 4784 attempted murder cases and 25118 cases of assault GBH.

Sekhukune said selected crimes against women and children were also increasing. There were 64 more murder cases of women bringing the number to 897.

There was also an increase of 82 attempted murder cases bringing the number to 1155 and 398 more assault GBH complaints bringing the number to 11824.

With regard to children, the were 69 more murder cases and 287 in total recorded murders.

There were 36 more attempted murder and 283 reported cases while assault GBH increased by 61 bringing the number to 1670.

There were 15 police officers who were killed while off-duty and eight others while they were at work.

“Overall we had an increase of three more counts. Most of these are in KwaZulu-Natal with six, Gauteng and Western Cape with four each and Eastern Cape three,” Sekhukune said.

The North West, Mpumalanga and Free State had two murder cases each of police officers.

In terms of farm attacks, there were 10 incidents that resulted in 15 people being killed.

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