Off the wire
• Chicago soybeans, corn rally; wheat weakens ahead of U.S. stocks report  • Interview: S. African expert hails China's pledge to fund development goals  • Interview: China's relevance to Netherlands underestimated: Dutch expert  • Interview: China's national emissions trading system plan is "a very important signal": WB VP  • Burundi to reforest 2 mln hectares to fight environmental degradation  • Spanish prosecutors to file charges against Artur Mas  • Roundup: Cypriot President says Cyprus solution rests with Turkey  • 1st LD Writethru: Gold falls for 3rd session in row on upbeat U.S. data  • SEAT admits 700,000 vehicles with "pollution cheating software"  • No tax increase in Albania's fiscal package for 2016  
You are here: 　 Home

S. Africa's murder rate continues to rise

Xinhua, September 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

South Africa's murder rate increased for the third year in a row, according to data released on Tuesday.

Incidents of murder rose by 4.6 percent in the 2014/15 financial year when compared to the previous year.

A total of 17,805 murders were committed from April 1, 2014 to March 31, 2015, the national crime statistics showed.

This means 782 more murders were committed in South Africa in the period, compared to the 2013/14 financial year.

The statistics were revealed to a sitting of the Police Portfolio Committee in Parliament.

The murder rate refers to the number of people who are murdered per 100,000 of the population. This allows for comparisons between areas of high and low population density.

During the same period, attempted murder was up by 3.2 percent; aggravated robbery up 8.5 percent; car hijackings up 14.2 percent; truck hijackings up almost 30 percent.

The number of murders increased in all provinces except for the Northern Cape where murder rate decreased by 5.5 percent, with 413 cases reported.

The KwaZulu-Natal Province had the most murder incidents which went up from 3,616 in 2013/14 to 3,810 in 2014/15.

This was followed by Gauteng with 346 more murders than the last reporting year. The total number of murders in Gauteng stood at 3,671.

The statistics indicate that police have to do more to fight crime, National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega said at a press briefing after the release of the figures.

The journey in the fight against crime is a "long one," she said.

"The issue of crime statistics is not simply about the numbers; they are reflection of the state of the society... it's who we are as a society," Police Minister Nathi Nhleko said on the same ocassion.

He said the country continues to have a violent and aggressive feature in its social outlook.

Bad police officers contributed to the rise in crime, according to Nhleko.

A total of 686 police officers were arrested for various crimes in the past financial year, he said.

These officers did not have criminal records when hired, he added.

The officers were fired and criminal and internal disciplinary processes were under way, Phiyega said.

Another contributing factor, Nhleko said, was inequality and the number of illegal firearms which are in the wrong hands despite police destroying thousands from time to time.

The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) said it is "deeply, deeply concerned for all South Africans who today face another year of increased levels of crime."

"The increase revealed today means that the murder rate is up to 17,805 which means 49 South Africans are murdered in this country each and every day. This number of deaths is what one would expect from a country at war. This is catastrophic," said Dianne Kohler Barnard, DA Shadow Minister of Police. Enditem