South Africa’s Police Minister Bheki Cele says criminals have declared war on citizens, following a surge in crime levels in the country.<\/p>\n
This is after the country’s transport minister\u00a0was robbed at gunpoint in a daring attack on Monday.<\/p>\n
Sindisiwe Chikunga was travelling from KwaZulu-Natal to Gauteng when the incident happened.<\/p>\n
“We nearly lost a minister that would have been shot and killed,\u201d Mr. Cele said.<\/p>\n
A manhunt has since been launched for the robbers, who stole some laptops, a phone, and her bodyguards’ weapons.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople say we are calling for a war; we are not calling for a war; we found the war in the way. These criminals are taking us on, so it\u2019s no use of taking a step back,\u201d Mr. Cele added.<\/p>\n
The minister said the government would address police shortages in the country in an attempt to curb the escalating crime rates.<\/p>\n
The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) wants tougher action to be taken against criminals following an increase in police killings in the country.<\/p>\n
At least 67 police officers have been killed in criminal attacks since January, Popcru says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa’s Police Minister Bheki Cele says criminals have declared war on citizens, following a surge in crime levels in the country. This is after the country’s transport minister\u00a0was robbed at gunpoint in a daring attack on Monday. Sindisiwe Chikunga was travelling from KwaZulu-Natal to Gauteng when the incident happened. “We nearly lost a minister […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9413,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"BBC","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1129,30],"tags":[122],"class_list":["post-9804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","category-southern-africa","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}