Western Cape murders fall 6,7% as police recover 610 illegal firearms
The province's quarterly crime figures show a real drop in killings, but firearms remain the weapon in most of them, and the police say seizing them is now the priority.
Fewer people were murdered in the Western Cape between April and June than in the same three months last year, a fall of 6,7%, and the province’s police commissioner says the weapon behind most of the killings that remain is a firearm.
Murder cases dropped from 1 140 in the first quarter of the 2025/2026 financial year to 1 071 in the first quarter of 2026/2027, according to the provincial quarterly crime statistics released in Cape Town. Just under two thirds of those killings, 62%, happened in the Cape Town metro.
Western Cape Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Sizakhele Dyantyi briefed the media on the figures alongside the province’s police top brass.
“The weapon of choice remains the firearm for the commission of violence and violent crime,” Dyantyi said.
610 illegal firearms taken off the streets
Officers recovered about 610 illegal firearms during the three month period. Dyantyi said the focus is on removing illegal guns and ammunition from communities through covert, intelligence driven operations, and that this approach would be “the order of the day”.
The South African Police Service described the quarter as bringing “promising reductions” across a number of serious and violent crime categories in the province.
A 6,7% fall in murders is a modest move on a large number, and it is worth reading carefully. It is 69 fewer killings than the same quarter last year, in a province of roughly seven million people where the metro carries most of the burden. It is a real reduction in the number of families who lost someone, and it is also a reminder of how high the base remains.
The firearm figure is the one that explains both halves of that sentence. Guns are the instrument in most murders here, which means the supply of illegal weapons is not a side issue to violent crime. It is the mechanism. Every firearm recovered is a weapon that cannot be used in a robbery, a hijacking or a killing next month, and the police deserve the credit for the 610 they took out of circulation in three months.
What the numbers mean for the people who live here
The consequence for an ordinary resident is straightforward. If you live in the metro, your household’s risk of a violent death is still concentrated in the same place it was a year ago, and the odds are that a gun is involved. A 6,7% reduction changes the trend line. It does not change the arithmetic for the communities where most of the 1 071 deaths happened.
That is why the target set out by the commissioner matters more than the headline percentage. Covert operations aimed at illegal firearms and ammunition are the correct instrument for a problem whose core is supply. The measure of whether it is working will not be a single quarter’s statistics. It will be whether the recovery figures hold up quarter after quarter, and whether the murder number keeps falling with them.
The Western Cape has now recorded a reduction in the first quarter of the financial year. The next set of provincial figures, covering July to September, is due later in the financial year, and it will show whether the drop is a trend or a single good quarter.
Source: SABC News (website), Firearms still drive Western Cape murders
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