[ad_1]
When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle land in Cape Town, they will land in an unequal city in the most unequal country in the world.
There is Cape Town that the world knows: Table Mountain; The vineyards; the spectacular beaches. And then there is the other side of Cape Town, where murder rates are high and gang violence assails communities.
"They are holding the community hostage," said Abdul Waheem Martin, the leader of an ambulance crew serving the Cape Flats.
"If you look at these areas, each person's home has burglar bars inside and on the outside – their houses look like a prison cell. These people are scared. "
The South African apartheid government created "apartments", as they are commonly called, by forcing non-white South Africans to leave large areas of the city center and its suburbs.
The royal couple will visit some of these areas, where security is so preoccupying the organizers that even the journalists covering the event do not know where they are going before the last minute.
Crime is so rampant that even ambulance teams have been attacked and stolen more than 80 times in 2018. Martin and his team now need police escorts to break into what is calls "red zones" – even if it means that patients will die because of waiting.
"It's frustrating, the guys are fidgeting here. Because we know that a person is in dire need of our immediate medical care and, unfortunately, because of the situation, we can not reach the patient quickly enough, "Martin said.
The teenager Naasief died in 2016, shot while standing in front of a store near his home in the township.
"He was my pillar of strength. He was my blessing, "said his mother, Shannaz.
Shannaz and other mothers who lost their sons to violence in the "Flats" say that gangs offer a terrible choice to young children.
"In most cases, children do not want to be in a situation. But they are forced to be in a situation. You're killed or you have to go kill, "she says.
[ad_2]
Source link