THE DARK CLOUD OF CRIME IN THE COMMUNITY OF KROONDAL
Naledi Phalatsi
The people of Kroondal are complaining about the high level of crime in the community. Miners who stay within the community are worried because most of them work at night and they also walk to work almost every day. Do community members have to fear gangsters who bully and take money from innocent people?
I went out and asked one of the community members, Mr. Nelson Langa Phiri, who said “We are no longer safe in the community, people are being killed every weekend. People can’t even go out at night to enjoy themselves because these gangsters are on every corner of the street. These gangsters rob everyone in the community and many of us don’t withdraw money at the local (ATM ) banks because these people follow us and point us with their guns. When we are sleeping we hear running footsteps and gunshots more than six times, in the morning we find unknown dead bodies by the riverside.” He continued “We are afraid to report these men because they are armed with illegal guns, it’s sad how they influence young boys to join them for protection and money while these young boys end up in trouble while their boss escapes”. He concluded.” Some of the taverns are closed because of the toxic gun violence and people being stabbed to death. Why are the police not protecting us from them?”
Bra Tebza who is the owner of a Kota shop says he was trying to make money by hosting an event at his shop when a gangster came after the event and pointed guns at them but they managed to defend themselves and tied them up. The police came but let the boys get away, how are we going to be safe when the police are not doing the right thing? We ask ourselves where these criminals get big guns like AK47s. “Kroondal won’t develop because when we open spaza shops we get robbed and some of these criminals use young girls and boys to sell drugs next to our shops. Pakistanis sell food and items of furniture they get robbed almost every week and this gang has spies everywhere, they don’t mind coming to your house to kill you because you have proof that they did something” he said.
Crime is at a high rate, young girls are raped and silenced with money, and young gangsters bully our children at school because they don’t want to join them. We as community members would like to help the police with these criminals. We need to live in a free and safe community.
Police must start guarding the community day and night. Drug dealers and drug Lords must be arrested because they feed young people chemicals. The community members must create a group of people who are going to explore everyone who is doing crime in the community of Kroondal, and everyone must donate money for people who are addicted to drugs because they are the ones who are stealing from the houses.