Johannesburg – Cape Town appears to be living up to its reputation as Africa’s most violent city, according to one survey, with dozens of people losing their lives over the weekend including a Ukrainian tourist stabbed to death on Table Mountain among 19 other stabbing murders, 21 shooting deaths and five other murders, according to media reports.
The city was listed recently as Africa’s most dangerous city by the Mexican Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, despite stiff competition from numerous other cities on the continent where crime is high.
Cape Town was also named the 11th most dangerous city in the world on the Mexican list after the Council placed the Mexican city of Tijuana at the top of the list, stating that it had the highest number of violent incidents worldwide.
Two other South African cities also made the dubious list for the world’s 50 most dangerous cities, with Nelson Mandela Bay coming in at no 45 and Durban at number 47.
Of the 50 cities in the ranking, 15 are located in Mexico, 14 in Brazil, six in Venezuela, four in the United States, three in South Africa, two in Colombia, two in Honduras and one each in Guatemala, El Salvador, Puerto Rico and Jamaica.
The ongoing violence in Cape Town, mostly gang related, recently prompted the South African government to deploy the military to hotspot areas.
Between November 2018 and May 2019, over 2 000 murders were recorded in the popular coastal city.