80% of precincts with highest murder rates in Western Cape - Phiyega
Cape Town - Eight of the 10 policing precincts with the highest murder rates are in the Western Cape, national police commissioner Riah Phiyega confirmed on Tuesday.
Of the 17 805 murders recorded across the country in the past financial year, 3 186 were in the Western Cape – a 9.7% increase in cases from the previous financial year.
"The 10 top stations contributing to murders are Nyanga, two KwaZulu-Natal stations, followed by Gugulethu, Delft, Mfuleni, Khayelitsha, Harare, Kraaifontein and Mitchells Plain," she said.
Most murders were reported in KwaZulu-Natal (3 810), followed by Gauteng (3 671) and the Eastern Cape (3 321).
Police alone could not be blamed for the increase in the number of murders as "
"All police can do is… react to a murder issue and investigate accordingly. It is essentially [after] the incident," he said.
"We need to dissuade ourselves to think that the reduction of the murder rate in our society is what policemen do and we have got nothing to do with it. We raise our children and we need to raise them in a particular way."