With the safety concerns of Cape Flats residents continuing to be ignored amidst heightened gang activity, residents have largely taken to social media in a bid to tackle the scourge. ‘Gang Watch’ accounts have begun to take centre stage in many of these communities, sharing up to the minute information on shootings, robberies, suspect individuals, and other information of public concern. The concept is seeing rapid growth across the country, particularly on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Manenberg Community Forum chairperson Roegshanda Pascoe, who initiated Gangwatch, said the online group was aimed at keeping locals on constant alert as to what was happening in their respective communities. However, she was unaware if the account was being used by police as a source of information to eradicate crime from the area.

“I was hoping police would take more note of how community members are communicating through the Facebook page. My personal feeling is that as much as we want to work with police, there is a breakdown of trust between the people and police,” she said.

Pascoe said it was often the case that either reports to the police were being ‘swept under the carpet’, or gang members and perpetrators were being informed beforehand that the police were on their way. With regards to the latter, she said how such information was being leaked from within the police was of huge concern to the community.

“Taking it to the xenophobia incident, it’s the saddest thing that could ever happen in SA, even though we said never again. The citizens and even the visitors in our country are not safe. Yet the president made a move with xenophobia to call in the army, whereas Manenberg has been going through gang violence consistently for three years now,” she stressed.

With reports that gang members are now in possession of, and using heavy artillery weapons in several areas across the Cape Flats, Pascoe said there was little community members could do to defend themselves. Hence they were calling for the army to be deployed.

“The army has the ammunition and so forth. What we’ve noticed is that even the SAPS (officers) are scared of these gangs,” she noted.

The Manenberg Community Forum will be hosting a meeting with various governmental departments on the 11th May, with the goal of addressing the various issues plaguing the community. VOC (Mubeen Banderker)