Five Eastern Cape police stations, including two in Nelson Mandela Bay, are among the countries top thirty police stations with the highest murder rates.
This is according to the 2017 / 2018 crime statistics released today by Major-General Norman Sekhukhune in Parliament today.
Police Minister, Bheki Cele, was quoted as saying that the crime the statistics "were scary" and in his words, "resembled a war-zone".
In his presentation, General Sekhukune said that 57 people are murdered in South Africa every day, up 6.9% year on year. The total number of murders recorded by the Saps from April 1, 2017, to March 31, 2018, were 20,366 compared to 19.016 reported in the previous year.
Attempted murders were also on the rise, increasing by 0.2% from 18,205 to 18,233.
The number of sexual offences reported to the police increased 0.9 percent to 50,108 cases in 2017/18 compared to the previous financial year.
Sekhukhune said 207 more rapes were reported than the previous year, with a total of 40,035 rapes reported.
Other contact crimes, which include assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm (GBH) (down 1.9%), assault common (down 0.1%), robbery with aggravating circumstances (down 1.8%) and common robbery (down 5% saw a downward trend.
Sekhukhune said police killings also contributed to the murder statistics, with the highest number of officials killed at once was in the Ngcobo police station massacre in the Eastern Cape earlier this year.
Police also recorded 238 cash-in-transit heists for the year under review.
He also said that during the 2017/2018 financial year 62 people were were murdered in 58 attacks on farms and smallholdings.
General Sekhukhune said during these incidents other cries, including attempted murder, rape and house-robbery, were also committed.
(ANA) additional reporting Algoa FM
