For many families living on the Cape Flats, the sight of military vehicles rolling through gang-ridden streets was supposed to signal change. Instead, weeks into one of South Africa’s most ambitious anti-crime deployments, many residents say the gunfire has not stopped, the bodies are still being found, and the fear remains exactly where it was before the soldiers arrived.
Just over a month after the launch of Operation Prosper, frustration is beginning to grow across several Cape Flats communities as residents question whether the joint military and police operation is producing the visible results promised when troops first arrived in some of the province’s most dangerous neighbourhoods.
Operation Prosper was announced earlier this year by President Cyril Ramaphosa as part of a twelve-month national intervention targeting organised crime, gang violence, extortion, illegal mining, and other entrenched criminal networks operating across nine provinces.
In the Western Cape, the deployment has placed members of the South African National Defence Force alongside the South African Police Service in known gang hotspots, particularly across parts of the Cape Flats where communities have lived with decades of turf wars, retaliation shootings, extortion, and drug-related violence.
But on the ground, many residents say the military presence has so far delivered little more than a psychological boost.
Linda Jones from the Mitchell’s Plain Residents Association says while residents occasionally see army vehicles moving through hotspot areas, many expected a far more aggressive and visible enforcement strategy.
According to Jones, soldiers are often seen driving through neighbourhoods without conducting stop-and-search operations or visibly disrupting suspected gang activity.
Her criticism has become one of the strongest community reactions to date.
“We do not need to see them, we need tangible change and reduction,” Jones said.
Community frustration is not limited to Mitchells Plain.
Anti-crime organisation Fight Against Crime South Africa says its community-based reporting platform recorded approximately two hundred and thirty-eight serious incidents between the 6th of April and the 3rd of May.
According to the organisation, sixty-seven of those incidents involved fatalities or serious injuries, while forty-eight were classified as critical violent incidents. More than one hundred and thirty additional reports are still being assessed.
The organisation says the incidents were concentrated in familiar gang hotspots including Hanover Park, Manenberg, Heideveld, Mitchells Plain, and Delft.
Fresh violence has only intensified those concerns.
Last week, police in Mitchells Plain opened a murder investigation after a forty-six-year-old woman was shot dead in what community members believe was a drive-by shooting in Rocklands.
The victim was reportedly walking with her boyfriend when gunmen opened fire from a moving vehicle, striking her multiple times.
Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya has confirmed that a progress report on Operation Prosper is currently being compiled for President Ramaphosa.
For many communities across the Cape Flats, that report cannot come soon enough.
Source: IOL – Marsha Dean; IOL – Theolin Tembo.
