South Africa’s president has launched an army deployment to tackle gang violence and illegal mining, a move that security officials say is meant to stabilize high-crime areas under police oversight. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the plan as organized crime and illegal mining intensify pressure on policing and public safety, and he framed the deployment as a response to what he described as an immediate threat to the country’s democracy and economic development.
The first major deployment began in Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city, with soldiers visible in the streets on Wednesday. The move follows Ramaphosa’s pledge from last month that he would use the army against organized crime, after he said the effort would directly target what he characterized as the most urgent threat facing South Africa.
Police said the deployment is set to occur in five of the country’s nine provinces and could run for up to a year in some areas. Officials said the soldiers would operate in locations where crime rates are among the highest, rather than as a nationwide response.
The government said part of the deployment would be carried out in the Western Cape province, where Cape Town is located. Police said statistics indicate that the province accounts for about 90% of South Africa’s gang-related killings, and that troops would be used there as part of the broader plan.
In and around Cape Town, neighborhoods on the Cape Flats are known for deadly gang violence, with street gangs battling for control of the drug trade and also being involved in extortion, prostitution and killings. The AP reported that bystanders, including children, are often caught in the crossfire and killed in gang-related shootings, and that three of the police precincts with the most serious crime rates are in and around Cape Town.
The deployment also focuses on illegal mining, particularly around Johannesburg and the wider Gauteng province, where abandoned mine shafts have drawn criminal activity for years. Officials said illegal mining gangs, known as zama zamas, are typically run by heavily armed crime syndicates that use “informal miners” recruited from impoverished communities to enter the shafts and search for leftover precious deposits.
Authorities said illegal mining gangs are linked to other high-profile violence, including a 2022 case in which about 80 alleged illegal miners faced accusations of gang raping eight women who were part of a music video shoot at an abandoned mine. The government also pointed to a standoff last year in an abandoned mine that left at least 87 miners dead after police cut off food supplies in a hard-line attempt to force the miners out.
South African officials estimate there are around 30,000 illegal miners operating in some of the country’s 6,000 abandoned mine shafts. The government said illegal mining has increased and is worth more than $4 billion a year in lost gold to criminal syndicates, while analysts described the activity as frequently driven by migrant networks from Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Mozambique—fueling anger in some communities toward both criminal bosses and foreigners living nearby.
Ramaphosa also sought to address concerns rooted in South Africa’s history, noting that people who remember apartheid, which ended in 1994, may recall troops deployed to suppress pro-democracy protests. He said it was important not to deploy the army “without a good reason” and that it had “become necessary due to a surge in violent organized crime that threatens the safety of our people and the authority of the state.”
To counter fears that soldiers would displace police enforcement, Ramaphosa said the army would operate under police command. South Africa has used troops in recent years as well: in 2023, soldiers fanned out into the streets after truck burnings raised concerns about broader public disorder, and in 2021, about 25,000 troops were deployed to quell riots after former President Jacob Zuma was imprisoned. In 2020, South Africa also deployed soldiers to help enforce strict lockdown rules during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic.
Crime experts have expressed concern that army deployments are not a long-term solution and that soldiers are not trained for domestic law enforcement, but the police minister, Firoz Cachalia, backed Ramaphosa’s plan. Cachalia said the army would act in support of police and “their operations in particular locations,” and he said the deployment was time-limited and aimed at stabilizing areas “where people are losing their lives” every day.