CAPE TOWN’S biggest morgue has seen a rise of 140% in gunshot murders over the past five years.
“We are now in a state of crisis. Murders – most notably by gunshot – are bringing in more and more bodies year on year, and the morgue cannot cope,” Salt River Mortuary head of forensic pathology Professor Lorna Martin said.
The number of people killed by gunshots who passed through her morgue – the biggest in the city – rose steadily from 290 in 2010 to 695 last year.
“Even with natural population growth and influx from other provinces, these rising figures for murder are outstripping them.
“So this is not an explanation for what is going on,” she said.
Martin questioned the accuracy of the official crime statistics, saying the difference was likely from police stations registering deaths as inquests which were then never converted to “murder” once a conclusion was made.
The Salt River Mortuary covers a large area from Atlantis to Khayelitsha. It includes much of the gang-ridden areas on the Cape Flats.
Western Cape forensic pathology services head Vonita Thompson said: “The stats for Tygerberg Mortuary show the same pattern as that of Salt River Mortuary.”
In Gauteng, the number of deaths as a result of gunshot has risen from 1 413 in 2012-13 to 1 608 in 2014-15.
But Gauteng health department spokesman Steve Mabona said these figures included suicides and accidental shootings.
Sonja Smith, who runs funeral parlours in Pretoria, North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga, said in the last six months they had noted a spike in gunshot killings.
“This is especially so for farm attacks and hijackings where more people are being shot,” she said.
New gun laws in 2000 and 2004 led to a 21% drop in gun-related crime across the country in general, but things took a turn for the worse from 2010.
Richard Matzopoulos, an expert in violence and safety at the Medical Research Council, said the increase was probably due to three factors.
First, there had been a national rise in murders across the country, “so the gunshot deaths in Cape Town are a rise within a rise”.
Second, in 2010, then police minister Nathi Mthethwa “bowed to public pressure and fast-tracked more than one million firearm licence applications in just nine months”.
Many legal guns were stolen and filtered into society as illegal ones.
Third, there were allegations that guns meant to be destroyed were illegally sold by police officers. – Additional reporting by Graeme Hosken, Katharine Child and Nivashni Nair
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