Urgent calls for action as Cape Town faces rising child killings and gang violence

As an intensified debate took place in the Western Cape Provincial Parliament on how to tackle the province’s spiraling gang violence, three men believed to be of the Hard Livings gangs were shot and killed during a drive-by shooting in Manenberg. 

More than 30 people have been murdered over the past few days across parts of Cape Town, where residents are calling for gang violence to be declared a national emergency and for the SANDF to be deployed.

SAPS Western Cape says gang violence remains prevalent, with more than 700 gangsters arrested and 1,500 weapons confiscated since April 2025.

These alarming statistics set the stage for a heated debate in the Provincial Parliament on Thursday, where political parties clashed over accountability, policing powers, and social interventions to curb violent crime.

The ANC Congress in the Dullar Omar region called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to declare a state of disaster to bring calm to sporadic shootings.

The ANC accused the DA of political opportunism, arguing that provincial and city governments had failed to address socio-economic drivers of crime.

During the sitting, the Democratic Alliance (DA) tabled a motion calling for enhanced child-protection measures and renewed its call for policing powers to be devolved to the province.

DA Deputy Chief Whip Wendy Kaizer-Philander highlighted systemic failures across government, citing 63 child murders between April and August, many in gang-related incidents.

“When social grants are delayed, families go hungry. When families go hungry, children are recruited by gangs to survive,” she said. 

MEC Ricardo MacKenzie underscored the limitations of provincial efforts in the face of national shortcomings.

“Provinces cannot reform SAPS. We cannot direct detectives. We cannot fix a broken national justice system. We are managing symptoms, while the disease festers in Pretoria,” he said. 

MacKenzie noted that while the Western Cape Government’s LEAP programme and partnerships in schools are reducing violent crime locally, these initiatives cannot fully compensate for systemic weaknesses in policing and the justice system.

He also highlighted the impact of corruption and inefficiency on youth safety and service delivery.

“Every rand lost to corruption is a rand stolen from our children — from school safety, from policing, from opportunity," MacKenzie said.

Policing Oversight and Community Safety MEC Anroux Marais said the province was bolstering neighbourhood watches and deploying additional LEAP officers to high-crime areas.

“Every illegal firearm removed from circulation represents a potential life saved,” she said, adding that the Western Cape Safety Plan 2.0 aims to tackle poverty, unemployment, and social exclusion — key drivers of violent crime.

ANC Chief Whip Pat Lekker accused the ruling party of failing to address root causes.

“These incidents are not random acts of violence. They are the direct outcome of deep structural regret and inequality,” she said.

"The blood on our streets is a symptom of a system that has written off its poor and working class."

In a statement released prior to Thursday’s debate, Premier Alan Winde said that gang-related violence had reached “pandemic” levels and raised concerns over organised-crime infiltration within SAPS leadership. 

He confirmed the Western Cape government had tabled a redacted Police Ombudsman’s report, following a 2022 judgment regarding possible links between senior SAPS officials and the 28s Gang.

“The delays in the investigation have become unacceptable,” Winde said. “We are demanding action and answers from IPID and SAPS.”

Winde's action follows pressure from civic organisations such as Cape Crime Crisis Coalition (C4) which penned a letter earlier asking why there was a refusal in the release of the report, calling for its immediate release or a redacted version.

DA MPP Benedicta van Minnen said communities continued to live under siege from gang violence. “Children are dying, not from disease, but from bullets,” she told the legislature.

She cited the case of four-year-old Davin Africa, shot while sleeping at home in Wesbank earlier this year, and his sister, 12-year-old Kelly-Amber Koopman, killed in a similar incident two years prior. “This is not one family’s tragedy – it’s part of a wider epidemic,” she said.

Van Minnen said the province had between 90 and 130 active gangs, with more than 100 000 estimated members, while police resources remained inadequate. “In Philippi, a single detective is juggling nearly 200 cases. We need a functional, well-resourced police service.”

GOOD Secretary-General Brett Herron said residents had been failed by all spheres of government.

“It doesn’t matter to residents whether they’re being let down by the police, the City or the Province – the fact is, they are being let down by all three,” he said. 

Get your news on the go, click here to join the Cape Argus News WhatsApp channel.

Cape Argus