Crime analyst Dr Mark Shaw told the Madlanga Commission on 2 September 2026 that Cape Town and Gqeberha are areas with extraordinarily high murder rates driven by entrenched organised crime, placing South Africa’s homicide levels above those of Colombia and Mexico and comparable to Ecuador’s.
Shaw, giving evidence before the commission in Cape Town, said the two cities show pronounced violence in localities with a high street gang presence. “We also see pronounced levels of violence present in localities assessed to have a high street gang presence,” he said. I think you could actually say a high presence of organised crime like, uh, Gqeberha and Cape Town.
According to the Madlanga Commission witness archive, Shaw testified that Gqeberha ranks third globally among cities affected by territorial gang violence, with Cape Town also severely affected. The archive summarising his evidence states that South Africa’s homicide rate “exceeds those of Colombia and Mexico and now resembles Ecuador’s,” a comparison that underscores the scale of the country’s violent crime problem.
SAPS crime statistics for the first quarter of 2026/27 show violent crime remains highly concentrated in Cape Town precincts across the Cape Flats. Mfuleni, Nyanga, Philippi East, Delft, Harare, Khayelitsha, Kraaifontein, Gugulethu, Makhaza, Lingelethu-West and Mitchells Plain all ranked among South Africa’s 30 highest murder stations, as reported by the Cape Argus on 30 August 2026.
Mfuleni recorded 73 murders in the April-June 2026 quarter, the highest number for any single precinct in the country, according to SAPS-linked reporting published by IOL and the Cape Argus on 1 September 2026. The Western Cape’s overall murder cases fell to 1,071 from 1,148 in the same period in 2025, a 6.7% decline, but the province still recorded a murder rate of 13.9 per 100,000 people, well above the national rate of 8.5, according to Business Day.
Western Cape provincial safety leadership said the decline in murders in LEAP priority areas may reflect targeted policing and violence-prevention interventions, but acknowledged that violent crime levels remain too high. Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis echoed that assessment. “The reductions are encouraging but violent crime levels remain far too high,” he said.
Acting Minister of Police Firoz Cachalia, speaking on the quarterly statistics, said the persistent violence strikes at the heart of community safety. “These are the crimes that create fear in our communities,” he said.
The concentration of murders in a limited number of Cape Flats precincts reflects a broader pattern identified by researchers and SAPS data: gangs, firearms and retaliatory violence remain the primary drivers of homicide in these areas. While the year-on-year decline offers a glimmer of progress, experts caution that the structural causes of gang violence, including unemployment, illicit economies and weak social infrastructure, remain largely unaddressed.
What remains unknown is whether the Madlanga Commission will issue formal findings linking organised crime directly to the murder rates in Cape Town and Gqeberha, or whether further expert testimony will refine Shaw’s assessment. Cape Flats News journalist Nadia Daniels will follow the commission’s next sitting for additional evidence.