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The number of people who were killed in the Eastern Cape during the first three months of the year, jumped 11.4% year on year.
That's according to crime statistics released on Monday by the MEC for Community Safety, Weziwe Tikana-Gxothiwe, and covering the 4th quarter of the 2021/2022 financial year.
According to the figures the number of sexual offences, including rape and sexual assault, also rose during that period by 10.2%.
There has also been a big jump in carjackings which rose 26.5%, but Bhisho reported a slight drop in robberies at residential premises during the period under review.
No bank robberies were recorded in the first quarter, while there was a drop in cash-in-transit robberies.
Thirteen of the top 30 police stations that have recorded the most serious crimes in the Eastern Cape, including murder and sexual offences, are in the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality.
The top station in the Bay with the most serious case load is KwaZakhele, with an increase of 4.1% increase between January and March this year.
When compared provincially, it is third after the Mthatha police station that's seen an increase of 11.8%.
Police stations that have, however, shown decreases in serious crimes include Walmer, with a 20.4% decrease, Mount Road with 11.3% fewer cases and New Brighton detectives dealing with a 7.7% lesser caseload.
In Buffalo City, the East London police station has the most burden of serious offences, showing a 17% increase.
MEC Tikana described the period under review as “an all-around tough policing period, and the quarter in question ended with the equally tough policing Easter week.”
“I am mentioning these two major periods to highlight the magnitude of the challenge that the Department of Community Safety and the SA Police Services were faced with over this quarter,” MEC Tikana said.
The MEC said that SAPS Eastern Cape management was also subjecting itself to a peer review by "hosting a frank dialogue with the organisations that have been at the forefront of crime-fighting and victim support in the province in a bid to improve our services to the people and deliver to them a safer Eastern Cape."
Tikana also noted that the correlation between crime statistics and lockdown regulations cannot be denied.
“It is, therefore, worth noting that what was presented here today, compared the largely, lockdown, regulation-free and curfew-free period of January to March 2022 with the same period last year, in which the country was of Lockdown Alert Level 3 and a curfew in place,” she added.
