CAPE TOWN – In a stark admission that criminal networks have overwhelmed civilian law enforcement, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced he will deploy the national army to combat the violent gangs and illegal mining syndicates plaguing the nation.
Delivering his annual State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday, Ramaphosa painted a grim picture of a country under siege, declaring that “organised crime is now the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development.”
To combat this escalating crisis, the President confirmed he is mobilizing the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to support the overstretched police service. “I will be deploying the South African National Defence Force to support the police,” he stated, signaling a major escalation in the government’s approach to public safety.
The move comes amid a relentless wave of violence that has cemented South Africa’s status as one of the most dangerous countries in the world outside a war zone. Official police data reveals an average of 63 people were murdered every day between April and September of last year.
The military’s deployment will be heavily concentrated in the nation’s economic powerhouses, Gauteng and Western Cape provinces, which have become epicenters of two distinct but equally destabilizing threats.
In the Western Cape, which includes the tourist hub of Cape Town, Ramaphosa described a harrowing reality where “children are caught in the crossfire of gang wars.” These well-armed criminal organizations have turned swaths of the province into battlegrounds, terrorizing communities with near-impunity.
In Gauteng, the country’s industrial heartland that includes the major city of Johannesburg, the threat stems from a darker, subterranean world of illegal mining. The President noted that “people are chased out of their homes by illegal miners,” referring to the notorious “zama zamas.” These are typically armed, undocumented migrants who operate in abandoned mine shafts, often engaging in violent turf wars that spill over into surrounding townships.
The decision to put boots on the ground follows a sobering admission from the government last month. Police Minister Firoz Cachalia conceded that the South African Police Service (SAPS) was currently not equipped to defeat the deadly criminal gangs—a rare acknowledgment of the scale of the crisis that has eroded public confidence.
Ramaphosa revealed he has already directed the heads of the police and the military to formulate an urgent plan, determining exactly where “our security forces should be deployed within the next few days.”
Beyond the immediate military intervention, Ramaphosa outlined a broader strategy to reclaim control. This includes the recruitment of 5,500 new police officers, a significant bolstering of state intelligence capabilities, and a targeted offensive to dismantle the financial networks of crime syndicates.
For the United States, the instability in Africa’s most industrialized nation is a point of concern. As a key political and economic partner on the continent, South Africa’s struggle to contain organized crime has implications for regional stability and international trade. The deployment of the military is a high-stakes gamble by Ramaphosa’s administration to restore order and prove that the state can still protect its citizens.
