Johannesburg – South Africa’s already alarming number of murders and rapes kept increasing at the end of 2021, the police minister announced on Friday.
From October to December, the country suffered an average of 74 murders and 122 reported rapes every day, Police Minister Bheki Cele told a news conference.
The number of murders jumped 8.9% compared to the same period one year earlier.
The 6 859 killings also marked an increase from the previous three months, when 6 163 people were killed.
That earlier figure already represented a worrying rise, which Cele at the time had blamed on deadly riots in July that left more than 350 dead.
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“Murder remains worryingly stubborn,” he said on Friday.
The deaths in the last three months of the year included 902 women and 352 children. Taken together, nearly 700 more women and children were killed than in the previous three months.
Rapes, chronically under-reported, were officially counted at 11 315 – up from 9 556 the previous quarter.
That means a rape was reported to police every 12 minutes.
Cele insisted that violence against women was a top priority for police, saying more than 90 000 officers had received training on helping victims of sexual violence.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Getty Images
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