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The Democratic Alliance (DA) joined community members in Gqeberha today for a “Do Our Lives Not Matter?” rally, where a memorandum addressed to President Cyril Ramaphosa and Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia was handed over at the Gelvandale Police Station, demanding urgent action to end gang violence in the Northern Areas.

The memorandum calls on the President to deploy the army to the Northern Areas for short-term relief, and on the Acting Minister to implement parliamentary resolutions for a national priority intervention in the crisis. The President and Acting Minister have been given 14 days to respond.

The rally follows last week’s State of the Nation Address, during which the President announced the deployment of the military to the Western Cape and Gauteng to combat gang violence.

Communities, alongside the DA, have long called for priority intervention to fight gangsterism in the Northern Areas, yet the President turned a blind eye to our people.

What makes the President’s snub even harder to accept is that Acting Minister Cachalia visited Nelson Mandela Bay in January this year and stated that gang violence in the Northern Areas mirrors the crisis in the Western Cape.

In July last year, the Parliament of South Africa adopted a report arising from a DA petition I submitted, calling for urgent national priority intervention in the Northern Areas. The report directed the South African Police Service to address the collapse of the Anti-Gang Unit and Crime Intelligence capacity in Nelson Mandela Bay, with required progress reports and strengthened national oversight. These were binding parliamentary resolutions reflecting the severity of the crisis, yet no action followed.

In December 2025, the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature adopted my motion to establish a permanent 24-hour Joint Operations Centre in the metro to coordinate SAPS, Metro Police, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, and the National Prosecuting Authority through real-time intelligence sharing and joint command. Despite ongoing violence, no action has been taken.

The Acting Minister visited the metro last month after Retief Odendaal, the DA’s Nelson Mandela Bay mayoral candidate, wrote to him in September last year requesting urgent national intervention and direct oversight. Nothing came of this visit.

The DA has fought for priority intervention against gang violence for years. These efforts culminated in a mass community march on 25 April 2024 to the Gelvandale Police Station following the senseless gang killing of three-year-old Emilio Hutchinson. Today, almost two years later, we return to the same station to again demand priority intervention.

The DA can no longer allow residents of the Northern Areas to live in constant fear of gangsters who murder innocent children and terrorise communities.

Our message is simple: enough is enough. The people of the Northern Areas will no longer be ignored as if their lives do not matter.

Issued by PE Northern Areas Constituency Leader Yusuf Cassim