Cape Town – ActionSA supporters from the community of Overcome Heights took their protest against gang violence to the gates of Parliament, where they chained themselves.
ActionSA on Tuesday, 16 September 2025, said desperate mothers chained themselves to the gates of Parliament, and were calling on President Cyril Ramaphosa to declare a state of emergency on the Cape Flats.
Led by mothers and their children, the protestors have rightly decried the bloodshed in their community, the party said.
ActionSA MP Dereleen James said the daily sound of gunfire, near-daily deaths, and the inability of children to attend school have created a state of terror that now defines life on the Cape Flats.
Earlier this year, in May, a staggering 26 murders and an additional 58 attempted murders were reported to the police in one week.
Last week, hours after Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia revealed that intelligence plans to tackle Cape Town gang violence were not fully in place, six people were murdered in shootings.
ActionSA said it believes that the testimonies of the mothers represent the plight of innocent citizens living under siege from gang violence.
ActionSA MP Dereleen James said the gang violence continues to claim innocent lives and has forced communities to live in unimaginable fear, unable to walk freely in their own streets.
“It is precisely for this reason that ActionSA wrote to the President and personally handed him a letter last week on behalf of the desperate residents of the Cape Flats, calling on him to finally act and declare a state of emergency,” said MP James.
“This would allow the necessary resources and operational capacity to deliver a decisive blow to the gangs and bring an end to the bloodshed that is costing innocent lives every day.”
MP James said ActionSA has also written to the Provincial Police Commissioner, Lieutenant General Thembisile Patekile, urging him to urgently prioritise increased visible policing capacity and to strengthen anti-gang operations in the community.
“We have further asked him, given how overstretched the police are and the absence of any discernible plan to end the scourge of gang violence, whether he will support our call for the declaration of a state of emergency,” the MP said.
“ActionSA sees no other avenue than such a declaration, which would finally provide the resources and reinforcements required to bring an end to the violence that is destroying our communities.”
