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A forensics van is seen following shooting incidents in Kraaifontein in Cape Town on 14 September 2025.
The death toll at Kraaifontein in Cape Town has risen to 14 in the past week alone. The South African Police Service (SAPS) has confirmed several separate incidents that took place late on Saturday and in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The community of Phase Nine in Wallacedene says they are living in fear. This, after three people were gunned down in the area in the early hours of Sunday in three separate incidents. One person was wounded.
In another incident, a male person died in hospital after he was stabbed in the chest in the Covid informal settlement in Bloekombos, Kraaifontein, early Saturday evening.
Mkholisi Mpukumpa from the Wallacedene Development Forum says police visibility alone is not enough to avert the deadly shootings.
Mpukumpa says preventative measures are needed.
“Look, the problem is that law enforcement is reactive. It seems that they do not have what you call a pro-strategy, I would say, because nobody knows that we heard there’s a shooting and someone has died, then the police react after that. In terms of visibility, police are visible in the community – they are patrolling. You could see vans moving around, but in terms of preventing these shootings, they do not.”
One of the residents, Mxolisi Mvandaba, says Kraaifontein has turned into a gun violence community where shooting incidents continue unabated.
“Every day, Wallacedene is not good anymore. Each and every day – it doesn’t matter if it’s night, it doesn’t matter if it’s the morning. I’m scared even in my house. This entire area needs police.”
Cape Town has seen a surge in gun violence and gang-related shootings in recent weeks.
In another incident, a 25-year-old man was shot and killed in an alleged gang-related incident in Overcome Heights in Muizenberg.
Police say the motive for the shooting incidents in Kraaifontein is the subject of police investigations.
No arrests have been made yet. Additional deployments have been sent to the area.
Meanwhile, Cape Crime Crisis Coalition Chairperson Dr Llewellyn MacMaster has sounded the alarm over daily shootings in the Western Cape, warning the province is in the grip of a full-blown crisis.
