Moving steadily through the narrow, unlit streets in one of Johannesburg’s toughest neighborhoods, weapons-hunting volunteers stop everyone in their path. No one is spared and few resist.
All submit to a quick pat-down, arms flung skyward, before the group sweeps forward in the overcrowded shanty-filled sprawl wedged into the wealthy north of South Africa’s main 2010 World Cup host city.
For 11 years, residents have taken security into their own hands, forming night patrols that march every weekend through Alexandra’s rundown streets to stamp out crime in a country that averages 18,000 murders a year.
PHOTO: AFP
Unarmed and unpaid, they patrol past noisy bars, small hawker stands and children playing street soccer, clad in bright reflector vests and carrying flashlights and government-issued identity cards.
“We have to do it because we cannot allow crime to happen in front of our eyes,” said Louis Ntunuka, a taxi driver who is the commander of the six patrol groups in “Alex.”
“When we did not have patrollers, you could have gone into every street and found somebody lying in the street. Today it doesn’t happen. People are free to walk in the streets like they want,” he said.
South Africa’s poor townships — the legacy of decades of apartheid segregation — bear the brunt of the country’s rampant crime rate with 93 murders reported in Alex last year, against 10 in neighboring wealthy Sandton.
Fear over South Africa’s violence is a chief World Cup concern with an extra 41,000 police recruited.
Soccer fans will experience the Cup mainly in “fan parks” with jumbo broadcast screens — a far cry from the grittiness of Alex where patrollers and residents say their direct approach has forced crime levels down.
“Since 1999, we’ve brought to the police about 628 firearms plus the suspects. We’ve arrested more than that number,” said Daniel Sibanda, 73, chairman of his sector’s weapons haul. “Crime affects us. You can’t continue crying. We must try to help the police. If we leave the police to do their job, they won’t be able to help us.”
Regional safety authorities plan to have 12,586 patrollers on the streets of Gauteng province, South Africa’s economic hub where nearly 4,000 people were murdered last year.
“It’s motivated by the realization — and it’s nothing new — that the South African police services would not be able to fight crime alone,” Sizwe Matshikiza of the regional safety department said. “We need to mobilize members of the community. The police cannot be on each and every corner of Gauteng, and by extension, South Africa.”
In many countries, such an official admission would spark a scandal, but here it’s accepted as conventional wisdom and supported by residents who are little fussed even when a cold Friday night beer or pool game is interrupted.
“Since they started, every tavern and every street, the crime is going less,” said Gladness Chakhu, owner of the festive Nomi’s Tavern as the group frisked her patrons.
Patrolling the streets unarmed, however, can be dangerous in a society where killings for a cellphone or a few rands (US cents) are not uncommon.
Nthabiseng Mabidietsa, a 67-year-old grandmother of two, was marching a few years ago when gunmen fired at her group.
“They killed three of our people with guns. But still, we’ve never taken a back seat. We’ve kept on patrolling,” she said. “Even if I’m an old lady, I must go and help because crime was too much.”
Mabidietsa said ordinary South Africans could do their bit to take back the streets.
“It’s no good to moan and sit down,” she said.
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