With schools closed for the holidays, thousands of Cape Town’s most vulnerable children face weeks of unstructured time on the streets where gunfire drowns out Christmas cheer, as recent tragic deaths expose the complete failure of police and government to protect communities under siege on the Cape Flats, writes Velani Ludidi.
With schools now closed for the holidays, thousands of Cape Town’s children are stepping into weeks of unstructured time, not on playgrounds, not in holiday programmes, but on pavements where gunfire rings louder than Christmas cheer.
For many on the Cape Flats, the festive season is not a break. It is a battlefield. It has already started with Manenberg, with constant shootings every day this week.
More children will witness crime scenes, stand over lifeless bodies, or become victims themselves.
Just days ago, 14-year-old Alnika Mitchell was standing outside her home in Kensington, watching her neighbour’s matric send-off, when shots tore through the evening. She collapsed instantly. Her grandmother, who saw the shooter, chased after him in desperation, asking:
Why have you shot my granddaughter?
There was no humanity in the response – just a cold command: “Move aside.” Her question could not bring Alnika back. It was a plea for something to soften the horror she had just witnessed.
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In Khayelitsha, 16-year-old Kwakhanya Mhlanganisi was brutally murdered, assaulted so viciously that even seasoned police officers were shaken. One suspect has been arrested; another remains at large.
And in Cloetesville, Stellenbosch, two cousins, just four and seven years old, are fighting for their lives at Tygerberg Hospital after being struck by bullets meant for someone else.
Whether it’s Khayelitsha, Nyanga, Manenberg, Bishop Lavis, Delft, or Eersterivier, the reality is the same: communities are under siege while the state watches from a distance.
A collapsing police service
Both provincial and national governments have failed these communities. The SAPS has long lost control, and nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the absence of Provincial Commissioner Lieutenant General Thembisile Patekile from major crime scenes. What could he possibly tell grieving families? “We are doing our best?”
This is the only province where 44 people can be shot in one weekend, and life carries on as usual.
The latest crime statistics have laid bare a police service in freefall, under-resourced, demoralised, and overwhelmed.
Police vehicles are scarce.
Detectives are drowning under mountains of dockets.
Many officers lack the passion or training for frontline policing.
Trust in SAPS has collapsed, with allegations of officers colluding with the very criminals they are meant to fight.
If accountability meant anything, Patekile would have been replaced long ago. His removal will not magically make communities safer, but leadership that inspires confidence might at least restore a sense of direction.
The Madlanga Commission continues to expose how internal factional wars have consumed police management. The real work of policing has become secondary to political survival.
Hiding behind excuses
The City of Cape Town is not blameless. With one of the largest safety budgets in the country, it continues to underdeliver for the most vulnerable communities.
The City argues it cannot police without investigative powers. But this excuse falls flat when its own Metro Police, LEAP officers, and law enforcement units focus on bylaws while children die in crossfire
It is unacceptable to demand more policing powers when existing ones are not being fully used.
In 2022, fresh from being elected as mayor, Geordin Hill-Lewis joined more than 750 officers from the Cape Town Metro Police, Traffic Services, Law Enforcement and the South African Police Service who participated in an integrated law enforcement operation in Philippi East.
“We have never seen so many police officers here – what is happening?” asked one resident when the officers walked past.
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Philippi East is situated between Nyanga, Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha and Philippi. It houses the Marikana informal settlement, one of the biggest contributors to crime in the precinct. While law enforcement focused on policing, workers from the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) were cleaning the streets of rubbish. The operation lasted five days, resulting in numerous arrests. Where is that same coordinated approach today, when on average seven people are killed in the city?
A broken system
Crime on the Cape Flats is not random; it is the product of entrenched poverty, unemployment, housing crises, lack of youth facilities, broken families and failing schools. Two weeks ago, parents gathered in the cold outside the Civic Centre, clutching photographs of the children they lost while simply playing.
Some were electrocuted by exposed live wires. Others fell into open drains that were never secured. These deaths were not the result of policing failures – they were the direct consequence of service delivery collapsing where it matters most.
The national government is responsible for many of these structural failures, but local government is equally responsible for urban planning, basic services, and creating opportunities. Both spheres have failed – and both continue to point fingers at each other while communities bury their children.
There is a broader criminal justice collapse: low conviction rates, slow investigations, and a gun crisis spiralling out of control.
So, what now that schools are closed?
Children on the Cape Flats are stepping into a holiday where:
There are a few safe play spaces,
A little structured activity, and almost no protection from the violence around them.
The state, at all levels, has left them exposed.
Communities will continue to mourn. Parents will continue to fear sending their children outside. And unless there is genuine political will, genuine collaboration, and a serious overhaul of policing and social services, next week’s names will join this week’s.
Because on the Cape Flats, when schools close, danger opens. And children – the ones with dreams, hairstyles, report cards, and futures – pay the price.
- Velani Ludidi is a News24 journalist based in Cape Town.
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