Two men and woman shot with assault rifle while walking down street in Delft

Police are investigating a case of murder after three people were shot dead while walking down a street in Delft, Western Cape, in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Assault rifle used to commit the murders

Police spokesperson Colonel Andrè Traut said that the victims were a 27-year-old woman and two men aged 28 and 30. He added that the suspects are thought to have used an assault rifle and a pistol to commit the murders.

“Information at our disposal suggests that the suspects fled the murder scene in Beethoven Street in a silver Opel Astra sedan after opening fire at the victims with an assault rifle and a pistol at around 1am while they were walking in the street,” said Traut.

The motive for the attack is not known at this stage.

Detectives from the serious and violent crimes unit are appealing to anyone with information about the murders to provide it to the police.

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Load shedding

In September, the community policing forum (CPF) in Delft appealed to Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa to exempt the area from load shedding.

It said the area sees rises in criminal activity when the power is cut.

“I would say close to 90% of the murders takes place during load shedding. And we’ve been asking, can we not be exempted from load shedding at night. Delft at night is pitch, pitch dark and when these shootings occur, we can’t see anything – we don’t know the colour of the car, we don’t know what the perpetrators were wearing, even with regards to some places where we have CCTV cameras up,” said CPF member Charles George.

Crime stats

The quarterly crime stats released in November revealed that Delft is now the murder capital of South Africa.

Between July and September, 1 164 people were murdered in the Western Cape, with Delft accounting for 80 murders in those three months.

The crime stats also revealed that three police stations in the Western Cape – Delft, Nyanga and Mfuleni – were in the top five stations that recorded the most contact crimes, including murder, sexual offences, assault and robbery.

ALSO READ: Criminals applying ‘maximum violence’ – Cele says police not comforted by murders decreasing

South Africa among top 10 countries for crime

November also saw the release of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime’s (GI-TOC) crime index. It had South Africa ranked among the top 10 countries in the world with the highest criminality.

South Africa was ranked 7^th out of 193 countries.  

The report raised concerns about the increase in drug crimes in South Africa, with cocaine and heroin trade surging.

It also said extortion and protection racketeering increased in the country, while the trade in illegal guns was another reason for high crime levels in South Africa.

ALSO READ: Global report ranks South Africa among top 10 countries for crime