Murder in South Africa
It is well-known that South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world as evidenced by the statistics. The annual homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants is around 40 in South Africa compared to 6 in the USA or 2 in the UK.
What is less appreciated is that the police in South Africa are themselves responsible for a serious level of homicides as explained in this article. Last year, the police shot dead 556 people – including 32 bystanders – which was the highest annual total for a decade and close to levels experienced during apartheid.
In 2004, Vee and I had a holiday in South Africa. It started and finished in Johannesburg. Now the city was not officially on our tour of South Africa, but simply a starting point for it. Nevertheless we wanted to see something of the place and took the opportunity that afternoon to go on an optional three-hour city tour led by a local guide.
Of course, Johannesburg has a fearsome reputation for street and house crime, but our guide was keen to emphasize that things are not as bad as they are portrayed and that they are slowly improving as the police crack down.
However, this reassurance was somewhat undermined when we drew up to a vantage point overlooking the city and found a black man lying full stretch in the road, totally still except for the blood oozing from his head. We learned that he had been attempting to burglar a house and the police had shot him dead.