File
Three Nelson Mandela Bay police stations have ranked in the top 30 police stations in the country for murder.
New Brighton ranked 6th, while Kwazakhele is ranked 18th and Bethelsdorp ranked 24th. They have a combined murder rate of 153 people between October and December 2022.
These were revealed by Police Minister Bheki Cele who was addressing members of the media on Friday on Third Quarter crime stats for the 2022/2023 financial year.
The Kwazakhele area, which has seen a recent spike in murders is also ranked third in the country for carjacking with a 119% increase from the previous year.
Kwazakhele, New Brighton, Motherwell, and KwaDwesi are identified as the provincial hotspots.
Truck hijacking is up 38.5%, to 54 cases, with Mount Road, Motherwell, Algoa Park, and Swartkops all hotspots While Cele says he remains optimistic that the 10 000 new officers on the ground will bolster crime-fighting efforts, Shadow MEC for Community Safety Bobby Stevenson disagrees.
He says the province has the highest per capita murder rate in the country, jumping from 19.7 last quarter to 22.5 per 100 000. He says 1 501 people were slaughtered across the province, a 15.1% increase compared to the same period last year.
"The massive spike in mass killings is a horror story, with 117 people murdered in just 48 incidents in the province. These figures are expected to jump even higher in the next quarter as the spate of mass killings recently recorded in the media are not included in these," Stevenson said.
These would include the killing of a 15-year-old Alexander Road High School learner, Inako Magidiwana, and two mass shootings that left at least 12 people dead.
Stevenson said the DA will continue to fight for a well-resourced police service that utilises modern technologies to keep communities safe.
"We need to get guns off the streets and radically improve crime intelligence."
