The FW De Klerk Foundation has broken its silence on the rampant gang violence ravaging South Africa following the drive-by shooting in Reiger Park in Gauteng that claimed six lives.
The legacy Foundation of former President Frederick de Klerk says something drastic needs to be done to reclaim South African streets from the violent gangs running amok, especially in the Western Cape.
Six people were fatally shot last Saturday, with three seriously wounded. This happened during a drive-by shooting shortly after a funeral of a Boskburg local gang leader.
Revenge killing spree
The incident has drawn wide-ranging reaction across many quarters. It is believed to be a revenge killing spree to avenge the gang leader who was getting buried.
De Klerk Foundation director Christo van der Rheede said the Reiger Park shooting was not an isolated tragedy. It was but the inevitable consequence of a system that has allowed gangsterism to flourish from the Cape Flats to Eldorado Park and beyond.
“The massacre unfolded in the heart of a residential neighbourhood. This is where families were still gathered in mourning. And gunmen sprayed bullets indiscriminately from a speeding vehicle,” he said.
“It was a chilling reminder of how deeply the culture of retaliation has taken root. Funerals turning into battlegrounds, grief immediately followed by more grief. Police cordoned off the street, briefed the media and moved on.
“The community buried its dead and braced for the next reprisal. This is not ordinary crime. It is a systemic collapse that denies South Africans – particularly those in coloured communities – the constitutional guarantees of life, safety and dignity.”
Apartheid’s legacy
The Foundation believes that apartheid’s spatial planning and forced removals cannot be ignored as the fundamental root cause of the violence. Especially in the Cape Flats in the DA-run City of Cape Town.
Van der Rheede said it was a shame that 30 years into the democratic dispensation, Cape Flats, which were designed as dumping grounds, not neighbourhoods, remain in the very same state as they were during apartheid.
The foundation believes that violence will continue to thrive in an environment where people are packed on top on each other like sardines, in the face of high unemployment and extreme poverty.
“The statistics tell their own story of a nation bleeding out. South Africa’s murder rate hovers around 45 per 100, 000 people. In just one week in July 2025, 76 people were shot dead in Cape Town alone. Across gang hotspots, nearly 300 murders occur every quarter. The Cape Flats dominates the nation’s top murder precincts,” he said.
Gang violence spreading across provinces
“The violence in Reiger Park is proof that gangsterism no longer belongs to one province or one city. Once caricatured as a Western Cape affliction, it now festers in Gauteng’s Westbury, Eldorado Park and the East Rand. While Nelson Mandela Bay’s northern areas endure the same daily reality of turf wars, extortion and fear.”
But beyond the bodies dropping on the streets, the foundation added, the ripple effect on the lives of all in affected communities was devastating. While prospects of increased economic activity diminish with every shooting incident.
“The cost of this crisis cannot be measured in numbers alone. Children flinch instinctively at loud noises, having learned to distinguish gunfire by sound. Teachers suspend lessons when the streets erupt. Ambulances and firefighters require police escorts to reach “red zones”. Local businesses – spaza shops, construction firms, nightclubs – are trapped in protection rackets that have evolved into a shadow tax system.
“Investment flees, jobs vanish and unemployment feeds recruitment, which fuels more violence. The cycle is efficient, relentless and devastating.”
The foundation is not impressed with government’s response to the crisis, which it believes is ineffective because it is mainly reactive instead of being strategic.
According to the foundation, military deployments, tactical surges and headline-grabbing operations come and go. And that’s because as soon as soldiers go back to their barracks and media is chasing the latest trending scandal, then violence resumes. And the cycle repeats itself over and over again.
Strategic planning needed
Said Van der Rheede: “This country has done hard things before. It defied the odds to negotiate a peaceful transition when many predicted civil war. It can once again summon that courage and common sense to reclaim the Cape Flats, Eldorado Park and Reiger Park.
“Put the kingpins in the dock, protect the witnesses, drain the gang economy. Flood young people with choices better than a gun and a grave. Do that — consistently, constitutionally — and the funerals will slow. The classrooms will fill and the rule of law will finally serve its purpose. To protect the innocent and restrain the violent,” he went on.
“Reclaiming these communities is not charity. It is the overdue fulfilment of the Constitution itself. The lives at stake belong to our neighbours, our fellow citizens and our children. The state must now prove — through results, not rhetoric — that their rights are not negotiable, and their future is not forfeited.”
