Crime is a daily aspect of life for the residents of South Africa’s Port Elizabeth with some areas in Nelson Mandela Bay reported to be “under siege”, with an alarming increase in burglaries and armed robberies being reported since the beginning of the year – and security companies believe these are only the tip of the iceberg. Police are stretched and residents have to rely on private security companies for their own safety.

This is daily life in the New South Africa, heralded as the “a rainbow nation at peace with itself”. How hollow the words of Archbishop Tutu ring for the countless victims of crime in multicultural South Africa.

While the police refuse to issue statistics, or even acknowledge that there has been an increase, security companies expressed concern at the crime wave, saying some areas had shown an incident increase of up to 35 per cent compared with last year.

Police spokesman Inspector Hazel Mqala said she could not give statistics on the number of house break-ins because of the moratorium put in place by Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula, “All I can say is that there have been break-ins in Port Elizabeth,” she said.

However a police source who did not wish to be named said break-ins in the suburbs, townships, and Northern Areas had increased significantly.

“Every day we attend to more and more housebreaking cases,” he said.

Security companies were more forthcoming with statistics, but pointed out that their figures did not reflect the full extent of the problem, as they were limited to their individual client bases. Atlas and Chubb Security collectively reported more than 330 cases in Port Elizabeth since January 1.

High fences for protection

Walmer is reportedly one of the worst affected suburbs. There is no surprise to learn that Walmer is one of the most sought after districts of the city. The high fences hide manicured gardens, fruit trees, swimming pools and help protect the families of businessmen, lecturers and senior civil servants. It is mostly race related crime, Black attackers, White victims. It doesn’t matter who the White victim voted for in the last election, and it might surprise your readers to learn that a good number of English and Afrikaaner alike voted ANC. It doesn’t matter whether the victim speaks English, Afrikaans or French as a first language, whether his family is a recent addition to the neighbourhood or a third or fourth generation South African - a White family is a White family and therefore a target. There is much Black on Black crime of course and much of that is tribal.

Neighbouring Lorraine is also hit hard with and ward councilor Gustav Rautenbach saying at least 30 break-ins had been reported to him in the last month.

Police cannot cope

Ward councilor Gustav Rautenbach added: “We cannot rely on the police for proper service, let alone to provide a safe and secure environment for us.” Rautenbach said he had requested the police to assign an officer to patrol the streets of Lorraine, along with about 20 volunteers.

Atlas operations manager Monty Montgomery said his firm had already responded to more than 200 break-ins this year, with Lorraine, Sunridge Park, Fern Glen, and Walmer being hotspots.

“Atlas also responded to 84 armed robberies, which included at least 10 house robberies in the last two weeks, where domestic workers were overpowered and tied up while the robbers ransacked the houses,” he said.

Montgomery said Atlas had three instances where criminals had broken in through the roof and disabled the alarm system before ransacking the house – and owners had lost more than R200 000 (£35,000) worth of goods per burglary.

Montgomery said even if the police had been prepared to give statistics, their data would more than likely not reflect the full extent of the problem as many burglaries went unreported.

Armed robbers

A Chubb spokesman said their armed response units had already responded to 127 incidents in Port Elizabeth this month, with the number of call-outs increasing by 7%.

He said some areas – including Summerstrand, Lorraine, Walmer Heights and Kamma Heights – had shown incident increases of up to 35% compared with last year.

The aftermath of the handover of power to the Black majority is largely unreported by the British and other western media. Life is certainly “vibrant” in the new South Africa but not in the way apologists for multiculturalism expect. Each day we face new challenges to our safety and security and it is to the shame of the British mass media, including the despised BBC, that it takes a small political party in Britain which is forging strong ties with British kindred down here to use its tiny but growing Internet presence to get the message across from those of us under siege in the country of our ancestors’ birth.