{"id":56960,"date":"2026-01-26T09:45:52","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T09:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/south-africa-mulls-army-deployment-to-combat-gang-violence\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T09:45:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T09:45:50","slug":"south-africa-mulls-army-deployment-to-combat-gang-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/south-africa-mulls-army-deployment-to-combat-gang-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa mulls army deployment to combat gang violence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the government is considering deploying the army to gang violence hotspots to tackle persistent gang-related crime.<\/p>\n<p>The president&#8217;s remarks came amid a surge in gang-related fatal incidents in several parts of the country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A call has been made to deploy the army,&#8221; Ramaphosa told journalists on Saturday morning outside the African National Congress National Executive Committee Lekgotla, a local term referring a key political or government meeting.<\/p>\n<p>However, he cautioned that soldiers are trained to neutralize threats rather than conduct investigations, so any decision to deploy them requires careful consideration. Ramaphosa stressed the need for a balanced approach in addressing the crisis.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The gang violence is one of those challenges that we&#8217;re facing. That is very prominent in our minds,&#8221; Ramaphosa said.<\/p>\n<p>Last weekend, at least 26 people were killed in a spate of gang-related violence in the Cape Flats, Cape Town, Western Cape Province. The violence included a mass shooting in Marikana, Philippi East Township, which left eight people dead.<\/p>\n<p>The region has long been plagued by gang-related violence. Police statistics show 2,104 murders were reported in Cape Flats in the first nine months of 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Between December 29, 2025, and January 11, 2026, the area recorded 58 gang-related murders and 60 attempted murders, according to Ian Cameron, chairperson of parliament&#8217;s portfolio committee on police. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-101068 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/sandf.jpg\" alt=\"South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the government is considering deploying the army to gang violence hotspots to tackle persistent gang-related crime.\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the government is considering deploying the army to gang violence hotspots to tackle persistent gang-related crime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":2000101069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[235],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-56960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-xinhua"],"bylines":[{"id":235,"name":"Xinhua","slug":"xinhua","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":80}],"contributors":[{"id":235,"name":"Xinhua","slug":"xinhua","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":80}],"featured_image":{"id":2000101069,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/sandf.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/sandf.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/sandf.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/sandf.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/sandf.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/sandf.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000101069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56960"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=56960"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=56960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}