Durban - A total of 6289 people were killed between January and March 2023.
This is according to the fourth quarter crime statistics that were released by the police on Tuesday.
Murder increased countrywide, by 3.4% between January and March 2023 compared to the same period last year.
Police minister Bheki Cele said the majority of the killings took place in the KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape and Gauteng provinces with arguments, vigilantism and robberies topping the motive list for murder.
KZN had 1,589 murders, while the Western Cape recorded 872 and Gauteng had 1 556 murders.
“The KwaZulu-Natal province also reported the highest figures of multiple-murder cases, followed by the Eastern Cape with 206 and 155 victims respectively.
“The Free State, Northern Cape and Western Cape provinces recorded decreases in murder figures with both the Western Cape and Northern Cape reporting double digit decrease in murder cases,” Cele said.
Independent researcher on policing and consultant to the Institute for Security Studies, David Bruce, said the statistics confirmed and reinforced trends that have been emerging in recent years.
“The number of murders in South Africa has been increasing since 2011/12 and per capita rates of murder are now at the highest levels that they have been in 20 years.
“However over the last few years there has been an important shift. Up until the 2021/22 year, the Eastern Cape and Western Cape were the provinces with the highest rates of murder.
“This has now changed. The Eastern Cape remains the province with the highest per capita murder rate. But since 2020/21 the murder rate in KwaZulu- Natal has escalated dramatically. KZN is now the province with the second highest per capita murder rate in the country.”
He added that KZN was also the province with the most murders in the country.
“The KZN population (about 11.7million) is about 72% of the Gauteng population (16.3 million). But KZN is now recording more murders than Gauteng. In the 2022/23 year, one in every four murders in South Africa (6 890 out of 27 272), were in KZN.
“The Eastern Cape has a higher per capita murder rate than KZN. But it has a lower population, so though the per capita rate is higher, the number of murders (5 126 in the 2022/23 year) is lower than that in KZN. The number in the Western Cape was 4 114.”
KZN Violence Monitor Mary de Haas said the statistics were worrying and nothing would change unless action was taken regarding policing and gun control.
She added that the measures that needed to be taken included improving crime intelligence, station and unit management and rooting out the criminal elements within the police.
De Haas also said that the minister should not be operationally involved in the police.
“It’s not his job to be running around and looking at crime scenes, he should be sitting in his office and dealing with the policies that should have been implemented three or four years ago.”
She said the Farlam Commission of Inquiry, which investigated the Marikana massacre, had made recommendations on what needed to be done starting with de-politicisation and the establishment of the police board to do the appointments and promotions, but none of this had happened.