Westbury can’t be another Cape Flats

It is to be welcomed that the security services in Gauteng appear to be taking the issue of gang violence in the province seriously, following a spate of shootings in Westbury recently.

The Anti-Gang Unit, Public Order Policing, Johannesburg Metro Police Department, detectives and Crime Intelligence operatives have all been deployed to the area following the shooting of 13 people – two of them fatally – in six incidents in the past week alone.

ALSO READ: Gangsters as young as 9 turn Westbury into warzone

Understandably, the people in the area are living in fear and cower each time the gunfire erupts. Some parents say they are too afraid to send their children to the local shops on their own.

Westbury, Eldorado Park, Claremont and Riverlea have been described as “no-go areas” by some of those living there, who also told us children as young as nine are being paid as little as R300 by gangs to carry out hits.

This is anarchy and not surprising, given that so much crime in South Africa seems to go unpunished and that police are often more conspicuous by their absence in violence-torn areas.

ALSO READ: Westbury community gatvol of gang shootings, camp outside cop shop

This cannot be allowed to deteriorate into a Cape Flats-like situation, where the body count, including of innocents young and old, just keeps rising.