The Police Minister Bheki Cele says areas on the Cape Flats have been completely sealed off during the massive joint operation which is currently under way between the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and the police.
He announced the operation in his budget speech in Parliament on Thursday night.
Cele says the spate of mass killings in areas on the Cape Flats at the weekend have prompted the deployment of the SANDF and the SAPS to the area.
“It is on the basis of what happened at Phillipi that the Minister of Defence and the Minister of Police have written to the President and requested the permission of the expanded deployment in these places here in the Western Cape. We will be deploying in the Western Cape, in your Khayelitsha, in your Uitsig and everywhere else – we”ll be deploying from 2 AM… We have started to deploy extra police and tomorrow we are sealing off the Western Cape Cape Flats with the South African Defence Force, with the Special Forces of the South African Police. We’ll make sure that the people of these places are finally safe, working together with everybody, working together with the police, with all other JCPS contingents. We will do that at Khayelitsha, Phillipi, Harare, Gugulethu, eMfuleni, Kraaifontein, Mitchell’s Plain, Bishop’s Lavis. We will do that at Delft, Elsies River, Nyanga where people have been dying.”
Minister Bheki Cele tables @SAPoliceService Department #BudgetVote2019 in the National Assembly, Parliament. pic.twitter.com/v4hvzelyDo
— South African Government (@GovernmentZA) July 11, 2019
