President Cyril Ramaphosa faced questions over South Africa’s high levels of violent crime and gang-related killings, particularly in Cape Town’s townships, at the National Assembly.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, during a question-and-answer session in parliament on Thursday, demanded immediate government action to curb “escalating incidents of daily killings and mass murders in Cape Town’s townships,” state media SABC reports.
South Africa has seen a high number of gang violence-related killings; in February, the South African police revealed a total of 411,600 serious and violent crimes were recorded by the third quarter of 2024.
Ramaphosa acknowledged the challenges but expressed confidence in the government’s strategy to tackle gang violence and extortion.
Stopping criminal gangs
“With the plans and interventions that we are now developing as we continue to deal with the gang violence issue and extortion, we will be able to bring this area of criminality to a halt have confidence in that the police, as well as other criminal justice elements, have been working very hard,” Ramaphosa told parliamentarians.
Public frustration over violent crime has been mounting. In August 2025, more than 100 people joined an anti-gang and anti-drug march in Cape Town under the banner of People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) G-Force, protesting against the surge in gang-related killings.
This latest wave of activism echoes previous nationwide demonstrations against violence. In 2019, thousands of South African women took to the streets to protest the government’s failure to address rising violence against women.
