At the last second, the assassin pulled a balaclava over his face, stepped up to the window of the minibus taxi (matatu) filled with commuters and fired two shots into the face of the driver, killing him instantly.
In the chaotic seconds following this scene, which took place near Capricorn village, about 35km south of Cape Town on Monday this week, the busy morning traffic ground to a halt and the killer disappeared into a crowd that gathered to watch the latest in a series of murderous taxi wars in South Africa.
Asked about this most recent killing in what appears to be a tit-for-tat spree between taxi drivers, well known for a penchant to resort to turf-war shootouts with rivals over lucrative routes, the South African police force declined to shed any light on what is happening on the ground.
This week, and in the wake of the brazen Monday morning murder, thousands of terrified citizens have been opting for long commutes on foot rather than run the risks of being caught up in the taxi wars.
It is also not the first time citizens have simply refused to use the mode of transport relied upon by over 80 percent of commuters to get them to work and home.
Last year, much of Cape Town became a no-go zone for matatu operators and their vehicles as two rival taxi groups once again resorted to guns to settle differences over the best routes, with commuters caught in the crossfire.
An even greater slice of the population, around 85 percent, rely on long-distance minibus taxis for visits to rural homes and family settlements, where, too, there has been contestation between rival groups.
The Nation has been investigating the ongoing scourge of taxi-related violence since 2017, not only in Cape Town but sporadically also in other urban areas and even in rural zones.
There is a long history of rival taxi groupings targeting one another, with an alleged ‘hits-for-hire’ grouping having emerged in KwaZulu-Natal and nationally.
The persistent issue of taxi violence waxes and wanes, only for another round of intense shootouts to erupt.
Now it is evolving to incorporate known gangsters who are “diversifying” their interests into the lucrative taxi industry, which also provides cover for their illicit cash trade in drugs, prostitution and stolen property.
Between 2000 and last year, according to the Global Initiative on Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), 1,971 assassination cases were recorded in South Africa. These were broken down into four categories: political, organised crime, hits taken out to settle personal feuds, and hits relating to the taxi industry.
Assassinations in the country reached an all-time high in 2018, with 46 percent related to the taxi industry, 22 percent to organised crime, 21 percent to politics and 11 percent personal.
Put another way, taxi-related murders are running at over twice the figure for political killings for which South Africa is infamously known.
As far back as 1998, taxi violence was addressed by criminologists as “one of the most pressing issues” facing the country – and things have only become much more serious since, with this form of social conflict increasing.
According to a paper published by the Department of Criminology at the University of the North (Acta Criminologica Vol 11(1) 1998): “Taxi violence is one of the most burning issues in some provinces of South Africa,” wrote researchers C J Moolman and D Kgosimore.
“This is the first major business sector to be developed and run by black entrepreneurs and therefore stands as a symbol of the economic hopes of many ordinary South Africans.
“The devastating effect of taxi violence on society, the country and the black taxi industry itself is virtually immeasurable.”
Ten years after that assessment, there was a serious outbreak of taxi-related violence in 2009, and then again in every year since, if not in Cape Town, where it has been most frequent, then in KwaZulu-Natal or greater Johannesburg, with even rural provinces affected.
In late October, two taxi owner-operators were gunned down in Mpumalanga province, which borders Mozambique.
Also in Mpumalanga several years ago, 11 people were killed when gunmen with AK-47 assault rifles shot at a minibus taxi carrying a taxi association leader, who appeared to be the subject of the mass murder, the other 10 victims being “collateral damage”.
In July 2018, KwaZulu-Natal police worked with their Johannesburg counterparts to investigate the killings of 11 taxi operators from the Johannesburg area, ambushed in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, where the family homes of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are located.
These and many other incidents have left millions of S. African commuters nervous of any sign of a resurgence in conflict in what for them is a key part of making their lives functional.
The latest variant of the perennial ‘taxi issue’ is the violence that has gripped Capricorn village, and surrounding suburbs, all low-income, high-density areas rife for the contestation that has now spread to include local gangsters.
NMG’s queries about what may be behind this latest alarming spree of killings – claimed by citizens to be “more than 20” since late September when a gang leader was allegedly slain by a taxi driver, triggering revenge and counter-revenge attacks – were referred to a specialised anti-gangs and provincial task team, with no details being released by police.
Once again, turf wars lie behind the violence, with gangsters having ‘branched out’ into the only partially regulated taxi industry, “muscling in” on routes now agreed upon but previously fought over between rival taxi groupings.
‘Unhappy’ with local gangsters, called the Junky Funky Kids (otherwise known as the JFKs), unnamed taxi drivers or those associated with them are believed to have gunned down one of the gang leaders and a gang member.
“On Friday, 30 September, at about 10pm, police responded to a shooting … in Vrygrond (near Capricorn village), discovering there the bodies of two men aged 34 and 30, both with multiple gunshot wounds and who were alleged ‘known members of a gang’,” said SA Police Services (SAPS) spokesperson Captain F C van Wyk, apparently confirming the gang leader’s murder.
Police confirmed various other killings in the area on an incident-by-incident basis, but refused to provide statistics on the ongoing wave of murders, saying these figures would be released from central authorities as part of regular crime reports.
Police confirmed that this past weekend alone, a “29-year-old male was shot and fatally wounded while two (minibus taxi) passengers sustained minor injuries”, while late Sunday two males, aged 70 and 27, were shot dead, and two women, 45 and 18, were wounded.
Beyond incident-specific details, authorities are loath to discuss the state-of-play in this or any other taxi-related violence, the issue having become a ‘hot potato’ for local and national authorities who have been at a loss to bring lasting stability to one of the most hotly contested ‘economic terrains’ – so hotly contested that it is often more like a battlefield.
Monday’s hit was witnessed by dozens of people, though police sources say that when they respond to such incidents, it is routine that “no one saw anything”, citizens being fearful of the easy resort to guns by both sides.
The Nation has, however, traced a witness, as well as cell phone pictures of the immediate post-hit scene.
Malawian Ayanda Chirwa, 50, was travelling in an oncoming taxi when he saw the hitman step up to the driver’s window of a taxi coming in the opposite direction and fire from point-blank range into the head of the other taxi’s driver.
“Yes, of course, I’m afraid. Everyone is,” said Chirwa when asked about travelling in minibus taxis.
Asked about the shooting, Chirwa said the shooter was unidentifiable as he had pulled down a balaclava, covering all features but his eyes.
“Everyone just ran,” he added.
The killer had fired from under a metre as the taxi driver who was his target waited for traffic lights to change in his favour, explained the traumatised Chirwa.
Having seen the murder, Chirwa also saw a friend of his, clearly distressed, clamber from the immobile taxi, the dead driver strewn across the front seats, blood flowing from his wounds.
Chirwa said his unnamed friend who had been in the taxi with the slain driver was visibly shaking after the incident.
But others, fully aware of the dangers, simply shrug at the news that for the last six weeks or so and perhaps for weeks to come, travelling in a minibus taxi in this part of Cape Town – or a dozen other areas of the country – might be a high-risk undertaking.
Said one, also a foreign national living and working in S. Africa as Chirwa has been for several years: “What can we do? We need taxis to get to work. Or we start much earlier and walk. We who have no cars and cannot afford to run them must walk or take our risks. That is the truth of life for us.”
