Shacks and shopping malls divide South Africa's murder capital

Printer Friendly

Share

Text Size

DURBAN, South Africa, March 1, 2010 (AFP) - Walter Masondo stands in his driveway, his grandchildren dashing around his legs, watching a steamroller lay asphalt at a township stadium remodeled as a training venue for the World Cup.

The day before, he said he heard gunfire erupt in a nearby part of Durban's KwaMashu township, which last year held the distinction of being the murder capital of one of the world's most violent countries, with 300 killings from April 2008 to March 2009.

"Some boys said it was thieves," Masondo said non-chalantly. "But then the boys came back here and they said they had killed the tsotsi (thief)."

KwaMashu is just five kilometres (three miles) from the leafy suburbs of Durban North and the city's golden beaches, but residents here live in a different world from the areas where most World Cup tourists will visit.

Durban North reported just three murders over the same period -- a dichotomy seen in all of South Africa's major cities with high-crime areas lying a stone's through from relatively safe upmarket neighbourhoods.

KwaMashu was a hotbed of political violence at the end of apartheid. Now development is taking off in the township of 500,000 people, but residents have vastly different fortunes.

Masondo and his neighbours live in neat brick homes with small gardens. The main road nearby is being expanded to four lanes, running to a posh new air-conditioned shopping mall, complete with a McDonalds.

"The only high-crime place is the KwaMashu men's hostel," said Constable Bougani Phenyana, who was off-duty at the mall.

"Even my colleagues are scared to go there," said the 28-year-old, who grew up in KwaMashu.

Aside from a few recently built apartment blocks, the hostels are a sprawling shantytown, with winding muddy paths between shacks made of wood scraps, rocks and scraps of sheeting.

Improvised electrical connections drape dangerously over roofs and through roads, with women washing clothes in ditches.

"I'm scared, because I don't know what could happen to me," said Mthoko Mncwabe, a 24-year-old hairdresser who lives in one of the shacks.

"When someone is shooting someone, you can hear it, but you will never see anyone holding a gun."

Impressions of residents were born out in a 2008 analysis of KwaMashu's crime patterns by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, South African think-tank.

"One factor that came out in this research was the hostels are for some reason quite strongly implicated in violence," said analyst David Bruce.

"There was also quite distinctly a pattern of the violence being concentrated in the more informal settlements parts of the township."

The study found that in KwaMashu, half the population is under 25. Employment was only 28 percent. One third of households reported having no income and slightly more than one third live in a shack.

Grim numbers, but they're mirrored in other high-crime areas, the report said.

"Crime generally is quite localised. If you look at crime maps, there are areas that are hotspots," said Gareth Newham, head of the crime and justice programme at the Institute for Security Studies.

"Eighty percent of violent crime is commited by people who know each other, so with murders, the victims and perpetrators know each other," he said.

"The wealthier you are, the less likely you are to actually become a victim," he said. People most at risk are those who take buses or trains home from work, and live in under-developed neighbourhoods with poor lighting, he added.

Masondo and his neighbours don't think they live in a particularly dangerous part of town, and say players and fans needn't worry about coming to Princess Magogo as long as they avoid the hostels.

"The World Cup is going to be all right," Masondo said. "Nothing bad will happen."