Residents of the Slovo Park informal settlement in Coronationville, Johannesburg, are up in arms against known criminals in the area. The disgruntled residents say brazen criminals are terrorizing the community on an almost daily basis and that police are failing to act against them. The residents say if law enforcement doesn’t act soon, they will be forced to take the law into their own hands.
Slovo Park is one of the oldest informal settlements in Johannesburg. It’s located just a few kilometers from the CBD, between Coronationville and Crosby and is home to more than 3 000 people. The informal settlement sprang up towards the end of 1994, and according to residents, it was a peaceful and safe environment. However, 30 years later, it’s become infested with criminal activity.
Residents are now up in arms, as they claim that known criminals are terrorizing the community. Community leader Tuelo Modirwa blames police for the increase in crime, saying that police tell them that they can’t access the area.
“We have been pleading with them, asking them please help us as we are facing a lot of criminal activity here because we have been trying to call them on a daily basis to say guys there is a lot of people that are robbing people at gunpoint. There has been a lot of people that have been killed in the last few months. And they have told us that they are unable to access the area so what kind of a police officer can tell you they are unable to access an area which is infested with criminal activities. So, our lives are in danger. My life is in danger as well so what should I do as a community leader.”
Modirwa says dozens of criminal cases have been opened at the local police station, but no action has been taken against the criminals.
“We are sick and tired; we don’t want to hear no more from Brixton police station because there has been a lot of cases sent to them. There has been more than 40 people complaining that they didn’t attend to their cases and those cases were very sensitive cases which were supposed to attended by the Brixton police station and that has not been done.”
Community member Thabani Zulu says he has been robbed twice in the space of three months by the same group of criminals. He says he now fears to even go to work in the early hours of the morning, because that’s when the criminals are on the prowl.
“This is sickening, it’s making me angry. These police are not doing anything, they not doing their jobs properly, they just making the crime worse instead of just doing their job properly. It’s a problem, we are not safe, we are always walking in fear, thinking if we are going to die or not. It makes me angry because the police are supposed to be doing their jobs, instead, they are just taking money here and there and they are not doing their job properly.”
ActionSA councilor from the Slovo Park constituency, Edwin Ntshidi says they have introduced community patrollers to the informal settlement, in an attempt to ward of criminals.
“We are trying by all means to fight the scourge of crime here and we have just recently launched patrollers to assist where police cannot be able to. But we are equally disappointed in the way Brixton police station is handling issues of crime at Slovo Park. A number of residents are reporting incidents of crime there but some of the cases we don’t know what happened, so we suspect that corruption is the order of the day there. And we are appealing to the minister of police and the commissioner to come and lay the rules there because police there are really lazy.”
Police are yet to respond to the allegations made by the community of Slovo Park.
