South Africa's Police Minister Firoz Cachalia has said that the security forces are not yet able to defeat deadly criminal gangs, in a stark admission that underscores the scale of the country's crime crisis.
Gang violence, alongside robberies, accounts for many murders in South Africa, which has one of the world's highest homicide rates.
Cachalia said gang violence had become increasingly complex, especially in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape provinces, requiring new strategies beyond traditional policing.
"I do not believe that we are currently in a position to defeat these gangs," the minister told journalists on Wednesday.
South Africa, the continent's most industrialised nation, has long struggled with entrenched organised crime.
