Residents and civic organisations gathered in Nyanga on Saturday for a safety prayer campaign.

The Nyanga Community Policing Forum (CPF) said the aim of the campaign was also to bring all relevant stakeholders under one roof to find solutions that can be implemented to reduce crime in the area.

Over the past few years, Nyanga has been considered the ‘murder capital’ of South Africa.

Recently, a tourist from the United States was robbed and shot on his way from the Cape Town International Airport while using Nyanga to connect to his destination.

That attack prompted Google Maps to consider taking the area out of its GPS as a connecting route from the airport.

Nyanga CPF secretary Dumisani Qwebe says there is still hope to reduce crime in Nyanga.

“We want to decrease the GBV [gender-based violence] cases, that’s number one. Number two, we want to decrease the murders… We can do work collectively.”

Qwebe said the CPF had also approached the City of Cape Town to install warning signs for visitors who will be using the community to connect to their destinations.