policeman

It was the fifth attack in the rural municipality of Silao in the last four months, the prosecutor’s office said.
Photo: Image by Flickr

Revealed: These are the top 30 ‘murder hot-spots’ in South Africa

We know South Africa can be a very dangerous place – but life is especially cheap in these murder hot-spots identified by SAPS.

policeman

It was the fifth attack in the rural municipality of Silao in the last four months, the prosecutor’s office said.
Photo: Image by Flickr

The crime stats for the second quarter of 2021/22 have been released on Friday morning, delivering more shocking details about the state of law and order in South Africa. Police officials have also listed our ‘murder hot-spots’, charting the locations where citizens are most likely to be killed in cold blood.

Where are the murder hot-spots of South Africa?

This latest batch of crime stats focuses on all reported incidents between July and September this year, and the data has been heavily impacted by the impact of the riots which flared up in Mzansi four months ago.

Phoenix, KZN is the clearest example: Usually, the town wouldn’t get a sniff on a list like this. But, following the vigilante killings that shocked the nation in July, it’s now placed 14th on the murder hot-spot list – after witnessing a horrific spike of 225%. Only Verulam, which saw murders rocket by 230% in the last quarter, can top that.

Most murders in SA ‘recorded in Inanda, KZN’

Predictably, KZN features heavily on the list – three of the top five hot-spots are based in the province. Plessislaer and Umlazi have seen their murder rates soar, but it is Inanda – which reported a whopping 92 murders in this previous three month period – that takes its very unenviable place at the top of the list. Murders have increased by 58% here.

However, the Western Cape – and the Cape Flats in particular – occupy a majority of places in the top 10: Delft, Mfuleni, and Kraaifontein have all seen killings soar over the winter, with Harare, Khayelitsha, and Nyanga maintaining their notoriety despite all recording a fall in murders for the second quarter.

Latest crime stats for July-September 2021

Atteridgeville, Gauteng (13th), and Mthatha, Eastern Cape (18th) are the worst murder hot-spots in their respective provinces. Furthermore, none of the other five provincial districts feature on this list.

Samora Machel in the Western Cape is the only location that has recorded zero change – and exactly 37 murders have been documented here in the past three quarters. You can see the full table from SAPS here:

murder hot-spots South Africa
The top 30 murder hot-spots in South Africa, according to our latest crime stats – Photo: SAPS