South Africa will deploy troops to fight illegal mining and gang violence, president says

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa's president said Thursday that the country would send its troops into communities to help police fight the scourge of illegal mining and gang violence in its two provinces with the two biggest cities.

According to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, “organized crime is now the most immediate threat to our democracy,” endangering both economic stability and public safety, particularly in Gauteng and the Western Cape.

“Children here in the Western Cape are caught in the crossfire of gang wars. People are chased out of their homes by illegal miners in Gauteng,” he told Parliament in his annual State of the Union address. As a result, “I will be deploying the South African National Defence Force to support the police,” Ramaphosa said.

South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, with an average of around 63 killings per day in 2025. Guns are the most commonly used weapon, according to authorities, and illegal firearms are used in many crimes, despite the stringent rules governing gun ownership.

Authorities in South Africa have long struggled to prevent gangs of miners from entering some of the 6,000 closed or abandoned mines in the gold-rich nation to search for remaining reserves. The government claims that the miners, referred to as “ zama zamas, ” or “hustlers” in Zulu, are typically armed, undocumented foreign nationals who are involved in crime syndicates. In 2024 alone, South Africa lost over $3 billion in gold to the illegal trade, according to authorities.

Ramaphosa said to combat the negative effects of rising crime rates on people’s lives, the government is prioritizing technology-driven intelligence and coordinated law enforcement against criminal syndicates.

The country’s Minister of Police and the South African National Defence Force are now tasked with developing a technical plan to deploy South Africa’s security forces within the next few days to address gang violence and illegal mining.