Thread: Fifty killings a day, but less risky for tourists than Thailand

Fifty killings a day, but less risky for tourists than Thailand
May 10, 2010

Every day South Africa sees about 50 killings, but the startling statistic masks enormous differences among violent crimes, which rarely affect tourists.

Crime remains one of the chief concerns in the run-up to the World Cup, where 373,000 foreign fans are expected to visit for the June 11 to July 11 championship.

One British tabloid recently warned of a "World Cup machete threat", while stab-proof vests are being marketed online with football insignia.

But South Africa ranks only 10th among the most dangerous countries for British tourists, according to the Foreign Office.

Of the 870,000 Britons who visited or lived in South Africa last year, only 139 needed consular assistance, against 5500 in Spain and 2000 in France.

Britons also have a greater chance of becoming hospitalised in Thailand, Greece, Egypt or India, where they can get mixed up in sexual or drug crimes, the ministry said.

While German football great Franz Beckenbauer has urged fans "to be watching out everywhere they go," the statistics show that tourists don't face a high risk of crime.

"In the first quarter of this year, there was not one incident of a German tourist travelling to South Africa that we know of that has become the victim of violent rime. There is no one," said Martin Schafer, spokesman for the embassy in Pretoria.

The French embassy said murders of tourists are so small that the mission doesn't even track them.

"In South Africa, 80 percent of the murders are between people who know each other, and more than 50 percent of those are committed under the influence of alcohol in a dispute that becomes more and more violent," said Gareth Newham of the Institute for Security Studies.

Crime is also very localised, mainly affecting the poorest neighbourhoods where tourists are unlikely to visit, he said.

"That's why most people who come here generally do not experience crime," he said.

"During the World Cup, stadiums, hotels, all the places where the tourists will be are going to be heavily policed... so it's very unlikely that there is going to be a high degree of violence."

That doesn't mean that thieves, pick-pockets and other petty criminals will disappear. In December, masked men broke into a hotel room and tied up two German tourists, robbing them but leaving them unharmed.

Even that risk will likely diminish because of South Africa's heavy security deployment during the games, Newham added.

South Africa has spent 1.3 billion rands (180 million dollars, 120 million euros) to to recruit, train and equip 41,000 new police.

Police chief Bheki Cele said South Africa now has 186,000 police for its 47 million people, compared to 140,000 police for 60 million people in Britain.
And he said the country is also preparing for the risk that foreigners could bring crime with them: South Africa will block 3,000 known football hooligans from Britain from entering the country.

Hooliganism is rare in South Africa, where football matches are family affairs.

"If it happens that they sneak in, they will move faster getting out of the country," Cele said.

Most at risk are the 80,000 visitors expected to come from neighbouring countries, people who are more likely to stay with friends or relatives in shantytowns that are the epicentre of South Africa's crime problem.

"Indications show that immigrants from Africa in South Africa have higher victimisation rates than South Africans," Newham said.

smh.com.au

Sleepy Blatter will still get to keep his job.

Just be very careful where you go, don,t carry expensive Kit, beware of the dark areas. always travel with others, keep your eyes skinned, this Mainly applies to the big Cities.

And anyone leaving Cape Town Airport going to Cape Town on the N2, look at the bridges for missiles and don,t stop , this is the C/Town Black Shanty area,

Originally Posted by Popeye

Just be very careful where you go, don,t carry expensive Kit, beware of the dark areas. always travel with others, keep your eyes skinned, this Mainly applies to the big Cities.

That applies to almost every city I have ever visited in the UK..

Originally Posted by slackula

Originally Posted by Popeye

Just be very careful where you go, don,t carry expensive Kit, beware of the dark areas. always travel with others, keep your eyes skinned, this Mainly applies to the big Cities.

That applies to almost every city I have ever visited in the UK..

It does in Leeds, Manchester, London and Barnsley.
The latter being a right dangerous shit hole once it's dark especially on the weekends.

Originally Posted by Popeye

Just be very careful where you go, don,t carry expensive Kit, beware of the dark areas. always travel with others, keep your eyes skinned, this Mainly applies to the big Cities.

And anyone leaving Cape Town Airport going to Cape Town on the N2, look at the bridges for missiles and don,t stop , this is the C/Town Black Shanty area,

Great advice and those traveling on to JBay and other popular areas should follow similar advice. 1000 times safer than central or north Africa and will be fine unless pissed chasing sex or drugs in dodgy areas once pissed. As always it pays to cover up.

Originally Posted by Popeye

And anyone leaving Cape Town Airport going to Cape Town on the N2, look at the bridges for missiles and don,t stop , this is the C/Town Black Shanty area,

Definitely sounds less dangerous than Thailand.

Originally Posted by Wayne Kerr

.... and will be fine unless pissed chasing sex or drugs in dodgy areas once pissed. As always it pays to cover up.

So Brits and Aussie expats will be most at risk?

Some of you lot sound scared of your own shadow. Barnsley's as dangerous as Cape Town, is it? Get real.

I've been to a lot of places in my time and in my opinion South Africa made me feel very unsafe, It's a bloody beautiful country scenery wise but i was very happy to get the fok out of there.

Fok it, They can have it.

Originally Posted by mr Fred

The latter being a right dangerous shit hole once it's dark especially on the weekends.

Barnsley has been 'dark' for a long time...

Originally Posted by Overman

Some of you lot sound scared of your own shadow. Barnsley's as dangerous as Cape Town, is it? Get real.

Aye lad, some fookin' lethal shadows oop there...

Originally Posted by Popeye

beware of the dark areas

Is this a polite way of saying the areas where the Blacks live or literally poorly lit areas?

Originally Posted by BigRed

s this a polite way of saying the areas where the Blacks live or literally poorly lit areas?

Bit of both really, they will think nothing of piping your nut or you being pangered. I know I live there on and off,

Terrys been there , so both he and me speak from experiance,

However its your life,

Originally Posted by Wayne Kerr

Originally Posted by terry57

I've been to a lot of places in my time and in my opinion South Africa made me feel very unsafe

Compared to other parts of Africa??? Franklee I felt safer in Cape Town and JBerg

Ain't been to the rest of Africa Wayne and to be straight up I'm foked if I want to go there. If one is an independent traveller which I am it just feels dodgy. If one is on a organized tour probably wouldn't notice.

On the way into Cape town my friend says to me as we drive by the townships with those massive fok off flood lights burning away :
Hope we don't breakdown here as theres a good chance the locals would ransack the car, people also been killed. Foking hell thinks me.

Rock up to her house and the foking things is surrounded by walls and rapped in barbed foking wire with a massive fok off gaurd dog in the front yard. Also direct alarm to private security as the cops are foking useless over there and cant be relied upon to front up. I'm thinking " double foking hell.

Next day go out for a walk but not without the foking killer foking gaurd dog glued to my foking bolliks , Every foking house one walks by is rapped in walls and wire with a guard dog barking away.

Cape Town is such a beautiful city but totally foked up by spiraling random crime that one just dont feel safe as a tourist and if I don't feel relatively safe there's absolutely no point in me being there.

Thing is Cape Town is considered a safe city by South African standards and if this is the case they can bash the rest of it up there arse.

Many locals trying to get the fok out of there and get to Aussy or anywhere else because the political situation is still very dodgy and there shit scared of what the future will bring.

Told to me by my friend who runs a very successful business in Cape Town and is looking for an out.

But yes matey, those nasty abo's are also a huge problem for us Aussies and I wish they would fok them all off to Cape Town.