By Anita Dangazele
- Police Minister Firoz Cachalia said the 9.5% drop in murders was welcome but the levels remained “unacceptably high”, with nearly half of all rapes happening inside someone’s home.
- The DA said eight years of promises had not made South Africa safer and called for lifestyle audits of senior police leadership and a new policing bill in Parliament.
South Africa is killing people at almost exactly the same rate it was eight years ago. Between January and March 2026, 5,181 people were murdered. That is 58 every day.
When Cyril Ramaphosa became president in 2018, the country recorded roughly 57 murders per day across that full year. The rate climbed sharply after that. It has since come back down. But it has not improved on where it started.
Police Minister Firoz Cachalia released the fourth quarter crime statistics in Pretoria on Friday. He welcomed a 9.5% drop in murders compared to the same period last year, and a 4.6% fall in violent contact crimes overall. House robberies fell 20.4%, business robberies 22% and non-residential robberies 18.3%.
But Cachalia said the improvement was not enough.
“A decrease in crime is not the same as achieving safety. The levels of crime are still unacceptably high with 58 murders per day on average during this quarter,” he said.
The stats showed 9,782 rapes reported in the same three months. Cachalia said nearly half of all rapes, 47%, happened at the home of the victim or the perpetrator, committed by people known to the victim.
He said alcohol was behind much of the violence. In the quarter, 898 murders were triggered by arguments and 299 by vigilantism. A combined 7,267 murders, rapes, attempted murders and serious assaults were recorded as alcohol-related. Cachalia said he had asked the Civilian Secretariat for Police to look at liquor trading hour regulations.
The Eastern Cape recorded the highest murder rate in the country at 14.3 murders per 100,000 people. The Western Cape followed at 12.8, KwaZulu-Natal at 8.8 and Gauteng at 7.1. Together, those four provinces accounted for more than 80% of all murders recorded nationally.
The Democratic Alliance said the statistics proved that eight years of promises had failed. The party called on Parliament to pass its SAPS Amendment Bill, which would allow provincial and local governments to take a greater role in fighting crime. It also called for immediate lifestyle audits of senior police leadership and officers in high-risk units.
“After eight years of promises, South Africa is still not safe,” the DA said.
Pictured above: Police Minister Firoz Cachalia released the fourth quarter crime statistics for the 2025/26 financial year in Pretoria on Friday.
Image source: SAPS
