African News Agency
PARLIAMENT – More than 50 people a day were murdered in South Africa between April 1 2015 and March 31 this year, the country’s senior police personnel revealed on Friday.
Tabling the annual crime statistics in Parliament, police management told MPs that 18 673 people had been murdered in 2015/16, representing a 4.9% increase from the previous year.
“It still seems to be a problematic crime we are facing,” said Norman Sekhukhune, SA Police Service head of crime research and statistics, while briefing MPs during the release of the 2015/16 crime stats in Parliament.
The only province which had seen a decrease (9.9%) in the murder rate was the Northern Cape, he reported.
“The rest of the provinces have shown increases ranging from 1.2 percent to 15.6 percent observed in Limpopo,” said Sekhukhune.
The murder rate in the Eastern Cape increased by 9.9% the North West by 6.3%, Free State by 5.3%, Gauteng by 4.7%, Mpumalanga by 3.4%, KwaZulu-Natal by 3.1%, and the Western Cape by 1.2%.
Sexual offences continued to show a downward trend, dropping by 3.2%, with all provinces with the exception of Limpopo (up 1.3%) and the Northern Cape (up 8.9%), having seen a decrease.
Attempted murders in South Africa were up by 3.4%, while assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm was up slightly by 0.2%.
Common assault was up 2.2% from the previous year, robbery with aggravating circumstances 2.7%, while common robbery was down by 1.5%.
Truck hijackings were down (7.4%) for the first time since 2012.
Cash-in-transit heists also continued a steady downward trend, decreasing by 15.1%, as did bank robberies which were down 64.7%.
