Johannesburg — Soldiers were deployed on the streets of South Africa’s largest city on Wednesday after the president announced plans to use the army in several provinces of Africa’s main economy to help police against gang violence and illegal mining.
The soldiers appeared in the Johannesburg suburb of Riverlea in the first major deployment since President Cyril Ramaphosa said in his annual address to the nation last month that he would use the military against organized crime, which he called the biggest threat to democracy and the country’s economic development.
An Associated Press reporter saw a convoy of more than a dozen military vehicles moving through the suburb of Riverlea, with soldiers jumping out of the vehicles to enter some apartment blocks. One area of ​​Johannesburg that has been affected by both gang-related violence and illegal mining is Riverlea.
The Department of Defense, which oversees South Africa’s police and military, did not immediately provide details on the deployment.
Officials had earlier said military deployments would begin in various parts of the country on March 1, but that was delayed while soldiers were trained in law enforcement protocols. The Army operates under the command of the Police during deployment.
Ramaphosa said in his notice to the Speaker of Parliament that 550 soldiers will be involved in the initial deployment in Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, to combat crime and maintain law and order. That assignment will last until the end of April, he said.
According to details submitted by the police to Parliament, the government plans a large-scale deployment in five of its nine provinces. The assignment focuses on illegal mining in Gauteng, North West and Free State provinces and gang violence in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces.
Parts of the national deployment could last more than a year, police officials said.
South Africa has a high rate of violent crime. Police reported 6,351 homicides from October to December 2025, an average of 70 per day in a country of about 62 million people, while there were also high numbers of attempted murders and violent assaults.
Ramaphosa identified gang violence and illegal mining as particularly problematic and linked both to organized crime. Some of the other areas identified for army deployment include South Africa’s top tourist city of Cape Town and surrounding neighbourhoods, which have been notorious for years for gang-related violence.
The president said there was no immediate indication if Wednesday’s deployment would include other parts of the country.
South Africa has deployed the army several times in recent years to help with outbreaks of crime and disorder, including in 2021, when the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma led to the deaths of more than 350 people as riots and looting in two provinces and frustration over COVID-19 lockdowns.
Ramaphosa said the troop deployment was carefully considered because the army was used to quell pro-democracy protests during South Africa’s decades of forced apartheid under apartheid, which ended in 1994.
“The deployment is necessitated by the escalation of violent organized crime that threatens the safety of our people and the authority of the state,” he said.
The deployment was largely welcomed, although some political parties acknowledged that the police had largely failed to curb crime.
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Associated Press writer Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa contributed.
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AP Africa News: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
(Tags to be translated)Military and Defense(T)Political Violence(T)Democracy(T)General News(T)War and Unrest(T)Organized Crime(T)World News(T)Article(T)130960815
