The two gangs that have been involved in deadly drug turf war in Westbury are now recruiting school girls as young as eight years old to form their own gangs in schools.
This is according to police minister Bheki Cele who was describing the murderous state of affairs in the township south of Johannesburg after gang-related violence broke out last week resulting in the shooting of 13 people over the weekend.
Cele visited the area yesterday after six shooting incidents last week which left two people dead, forcing police to deploy 50 units from different police stations across the province. The shootings were sparked by the killing of two gang leaders two weeks ago, who are linked to rival groups the Vardos and the Fast Guns.
“There is something very bad here. I am told that even young girls are forming their own gangs even at the school level. For that reason, it cannot be the police alone. It will have to be done in collaboration with other departments. For instance if we arrest those children, some of them [aged] eight, nine, 10 as the police we would have to hand them over to social development,” he said.
“There are a lot of problems at a school level that requires us to involve the department of education. We are told that there are houses that are used as brothels, run by gangsters. We would have to deal with social development.”
Westbury patrolling forums (WPF) secretary Catherine Kith said schools were also becoming spots for learners to sell drugs and carry weapons for fights.
“When we do our regular searches at schools we find drugs in powder form or pills, we find knives. Gangsterism is coming from the community, into the schools. Young boys involve themselves in these gang acts, fighting at school and threatening one another with knives.”
She said on average, the WPF attends to three gang-related murders per day.
When it is better, it would be three a week. And I am not even counting the ones that we do know about, so the numbers could be more. People dying has become such a common thing in this area and the community is living in fear,” she said.
“People can’t leave their homes without fearing they will get shot. There are messages that are going around threatening that the shootings will not stop. We need serious intervention.”
She said members of the community were doubtful about Cele’s feedback, but hoped that they would be involved in a forum in their plans to combat the crimes.
The visit by Cele was, however, not the first to the area. In 2018, the specialised crime unit was deployed to the area and calm was restored only for a few weeks, according to residents. This time Cele said they were yet to develop measures to deal with the violence, but would have more boots on the ground until next week Tuesday when a plan is formulated.
Cele acknowledged that police in the area needed to pull up their socks saying the ministry was aware of allegations made against some police officers who are accused of being on the gangster’s payroll.
He said some of the gang members operating in the area, moved from Cape Town to create new structures and cause chaos. “It is on that score that we must up our game as the police to make sure whether you come from Cape Town or elsewhere, any other part of SA, we need to deal with you.”
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