- The Khayelitsha Development Forum is working on a social media campaign to say their township "is not a jungle" because of its association with a high crime rate.
- To them it is a place of educated people, good businesspeople, and a great social life.
- But the recent spate of mass shootings have painted it with a different brush, leaving the impression that it's a hotbed of crime and murder.
On a typical day in Khayelitsha, the household shopper can buy a free range chicken so fresh that its feathers have just been plucked by the women sitting in the sun, chatting and laughing while they work.
The sky forms a huge blue umbrella overhead for a sprawling and highly resourceful community, about 25km east of the Cape Town CBD.
"The best thing about Khayelitsha is its people," says Khayelitsha Development Forum's (KDF) Ndithini Tyhido.
"I wouldn't exchange Khayelitsha for anywhere in the world. We have very educated people living here. People who have come up with good initiatives and flourishing churches. There is a lovely braai on every corner, prepared with love by friendly people.
"We have a vibrant social scene with clubs, and beautiful people walk in the street daily. Then you have crime..."
Underneath the hustle and bustle of taxis hooting, and the gqom and amapiano music blaring from pavement stalls and car washes, lies the certainty that some of the estimated more than one million people living there would become victims of crime.
Murder, robbery, assault, muggings, and domestic violence keep pulling the township into the country's list of police stations with the most crimes reported, information which can be accessed using News24's CrimeCheck online tool.
For the KDF, the fight against crime means bringing more development to the area, and creating an environment where people can grow old in peace, and new generations can rise and excel.
Police cluster commander Major General Vincent Beaton's presentation to Police Minister Bheki Cele and residents at a recent Youth Month imbizo showed how difficult it was to police the township.
He revealed there was even a category called "hits" in the crime statistics he compiled.
The mass shootings in the township from 2020 have shocked the community.
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Groups of mostly men were gunned down very suddenly by people who melted into the nearby mazes of passages and corridors connecting the township's shacklands.
The present lull in Khayelitsha has been attributed to the arrest of Yanga "Bara" Nyalara, a wiry 30-year-old man who police believe is the mastermind behind a deadly extortion racket.
The gang is understood to have collected protection money from businesses, mainly foreign-owned spaza shops, with threats of damage to property or death if they didn't pay up.
For months, police struggled to make a breakthrough in the shootings. Some foot soldiers were arrested, and Western Cape police commissioner, Lieutenant-General Thembisile Patekile, said at a recent media briefing that witnesses are too scared to tell the police anything in case they get killed.
Peter Gastrow of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime studied the recent pattern of extortion that has plagued Khayelitsha.
"It is a sophisticated crime," he told News24.
He explained this form of criminal activity rises as a form of criminal governance in areas where people feel law enforcement is failing them.
Gastrow said:
In addition to mass shootings, some people in the taxi industry are also often linked to organised crime in the area.
This is on top of deadly turf wars, which not only leave commuters stranded but also put passengers in the line of fire.
In January, the bullet-riddled body of Mzoxolo Cecil Dibela, a leader of the Congress of Democratic Taxi Associations, was found dumped on Khayelitsha's Monwabisi beach as he was about to sign an agreement allowing the MyCiTi express to Khayelitsha to resume.
For Gastrow, the only way the police are going to penetrate the Khayelitsha underworld and criminal networks is by making more arrests so residents will start trusting them again.
"The public needs to be persuaded that the police are serious, and that includes visible policing," he said.
To commemorate Youth Month, Cele handed over a number of new police cars in Khayelitsha, which came with a new cellphone each. The number would be made available to the communities they would patrol so residents could dial them for a more immediate response.
A complication in the police's crime-fighting efforts is the rise of new shack settlements during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of the new residents said they were displaced from rental properties when they lost their jobs during the lockdown.
The City of Cape Town tried to have them removed from the areas earmarked for the laying of new waste lines, but residents resisted.
An urgent court application put these efforts on hold, while judges in the Western Cape High Court decided how best to handle the situation.
A police officer speaking on condition of anonymity to News24 explained these new areas made it difficult for the police to cultivate the informer networks they needed to get advance warning of crime. The layout also didn't help when trying to flush out criminals on the run.
According to Beaton, police felt they were getting a handle on crime, but some categories persisted in situations difficult to police.
Rape tended to occur at home, or with friends and neighbours, or by a person known to the victim. Most murders and attempted murders were caused by disagreements and arguments.
He also said car hijacking was becoming more prolific.
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The City of Cape Town and the Western Cape government said they were trying to do their part to help the police.
Safety and Security MMC JP Smith said Khayelitsha forms part of the City's Eastern Area enforcement deployment, and it has deployed over 200 law enforcement, traffic service, and Metro police to Area East, and worked with the province's [Law Enforcement Advancement Plan] officers and resources.
Smith said Khayelitsha also had 34 CCTV cameras, with more installations planned, making it one of the areas with the highest number of cameras.
"Unfortunately, vandalism of infrastructure is an ongoing challenge, although the rate of repairs and maintenance is very good."
He said CCTV cameras could only record crimes that happen in view of the cameras. It was up to the police, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the Department of Justice to ensure that investigations occur.
One of the complaints raised in the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry into policing there was that lighting was very bad, making it unsafe.
MMC for Energy Beverley van Reenen said although Khayelitsha was an Eskom-supplied area, the City installed public lighting in collaboration with the community.
But Khayelitsha was among areas in the Metro hit by an unprecedented and repeated increase in electricity infrastructure theft, vandalism and illegal connections.
Van Reenen explained:
The Western Cape government recently launched a crime and safety dashboard, where it identifies crime hotspots based on hospital trauma admissions.
It shares this information with various policing authorities.
MEC for Police Oversight and Community Safety Reagen Allen regularly pointed out Western Cape had the lowest proportion of police officers to citizens and consistently asked for more officers to be sent to the province.
In the meantime, community initiatives against crime complement the more formal initiatives.
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One that residents are particularly proud of was their determination that last year Khayelitsha wouldn't be looted, like parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Tyhido said the only way to prevent crime was for the whole community to work together against it.
And, to counter the belief that Khayelitsha is only famous for crime, they are planning a social media campaign using the suburb's area code of 7788 to say #7788isnotajungle.
"This place is not just about crime. It has very talented people living here," Tyhido said.