Gang violence is rife in South Africa’s Western Cape. In 2013, 12 percent of the 2,580 murders in the province were gang-related according to the South African Police Service. This is an 86 percent jump from 2012. Children as young as 14 are being arrested on gang-related murder charges, CCTV reported.

The relocation of colored (of mixed race ancestry) and black people from Cape Town’s inner city to the Cape Flats and surrounding townships during apartheid had a powerful effect on those relocated. The social dislocation nurtured conditions for the street gangs of the early 1980s to thrive, according to criminologist Don Pinnock, in his book “Gangs, Rituals, & Rites of Passage”.

In the past 20 years these gangs have become tied to drug trafficking. Cape Town has become a destination and a transit point. The South African Medical Research Council reckons the city is one of the country’s biggest drug markets. The number of drug-related crimes in the Western Cape—over 70,000 between April 2010 and March 2011—made it by far the most drug-prone province.