Victims who hit CrossFire in Cape Town

The bewildered father lies on a narrow, single bed and points to two small holes for the bullet in the wall of his home.

This is an extraordinary testimony of a moment who forever destroyed the life of his family.

The four -year -old son of Devon Africa was shot dead in February, who was crossed between the criminals.

He fell the victim of the gang war suffering from the apartments of the apartments, the villages around the Cape and the Apodirid, if not the white population was forcibly moved from the center of the wealthy city to insufficient review.

“It’s a bullet hole,” he says. “He slept here.”

The family has already survived unspeakable horror.

The older sister Davin, Kelly Amber, was killed two years earlier, also shot when the opponents who fired at each other. She was 12.

Now, Devon and his wife, who were not, remained only their youngest daughter.

“She asks me, ‘Where’s my brother? “,” says Undean. “So I told her he and Jesus in the heart of Dad and in my heart.”

These murders took place in an area known as Vesbank, but many other families in the wide area of ​​Cape -kypers had to survive similar nightmares, despite the assurances of police increased patrols.

The numbers tell about a terrible story. According to the police, the Western Cape province – in which the Cape’s apartments are sitting – consistently see the overwhelming majority of killings related to gangs, police reports.

Officially, this is a priority for the government’s security. President Kirill Ramaphos created a special unit to fight violence in the gang in 2018, he also briefly launched the army into the area next year, but the problem was maintained and the murder continued.

“There is a whole story and generations born in these gangs,” says Gareth Newham, head of the justice and violence program at the Johannesburg Security Research Institute.

“(They) thrive in areas that largely neglect or underdeveloped by the state. The gangs provide a form of social structure, which actually provides services to communities that the state does not.

They are laid in society, and “so it is so difficult for the police to deal with them … It means that they can use non -part -storage houses and storage of weapons.”

But there are people trying to resolve this issue.

Fifteen kilometers (nine miles) from Wesbank is Hanover Park, where Pastor Craven Engel is almost all day glued to his mobile phone, every day in search of peace.

His mission is to mediate in gang conflicts to stop this violence and killings that are fueled by the profitable drug trafficking. He and his team try to follow the basic formula: detection, interruption and change of thinking.

“The Hanover Park does not really have an economy that can be discussed,” says Pastor Engel. “The majority of the economy is leaving the drug culture. This is the biggest economy.”

Pastor Engel says that the influence of apartheid on the area cannot be not noticed, but there may not be injuries of generations – manifested as addiction and then the rupture of the family.

“The substance (drugs) creates unemployment, the substance creates a robbery, creates gang fights from the darn. Thus, the substance is at the center of such a number of atrocities,” says Pastor Engel, who estimates that about 70% of local children live with some dependence.

This community of about 50,000 people should carry shootings and knife almost daily. And these are often young people who do killing and killing.

“Only the approach to law enforcement is unlikely to solve the problem because you can arrest people for the fact that they are participants in the gang, for weapons and shooting. They will go to jail, but then they are replaced by junior members. And this creates a completely different set of problems.

“How is the baby shot seven times in his head or three times in the back? How did a stray bullet hit the baby?” Pastor Engel asks.

On his phone, he calls on community leaders and gang kingpins, constantly breaking through to try to abandon violence. When the BBC Africa Eye visits it, it tries to conclude the ceasefire between the two military gangs – and manages to get to the prison leader of one of them.

“If I want something to happen, then it still happens. Do you understand the pastor?” The boss gangs screams along the line. “But I can tell you one thing. I’m a guy who likes to resist when I get under the fire.”

Threats. Even from the bars.

But Pastor Engel is relentless. He is very noticeable in his community, whether in the house of the parishioner or before his great and loud Congregation on the pulpit on Sunday.

“I think what makes it very, very scary, there are more children involved in gangs because gangs are gaining age from eight and 15,” he says.

The program he conducted used to produce public money, but it dried. To cut off the power lines and protect the innocent, he will meet with the victims and guilty anywhere and at any time.

He also sends rehabilitated gang members to agree directly with the warring factions. Those who lived on the verge of death know how critical the peace is.

Glen Hans is one of these people. He meets the opponents to convince them to pay tribute to the ceasefire. “I was also in this game. As long as you make a decision that you want to become a better person. That’s all,” he tells a group of members of the gang.

The person has a cooling answer: “The more we kill, the more the land we will capture and the more we can build. So I talk about peace – I cannot make this decision because it is not my decision to ensure peace.”

The infection, which is eventually agreed, lasts only a few days, broken by the murder of two people during firing.

But some in the thick of the conflict was enough.

Fernando – either Nando – Johnston is in a gang called “beasts” and he wants to try to find the exit with the help of pastor Engel.

The pastor describes Mr. Johnston as a young and “born in the gang” since his whole family has participated.

“There are only two options in this game – either you go to jail or die,” says Mr. Johnston.

“I really want to change the direction and I believe there is always a way. So I went to the pastor – ask him if there is a plan or a way to take me.”

It will join the rehabilitation program from six to 12 weeks, which is managed by the pastor and is funded by charity donations designed to exit people from drugs and work.

“The fact is that you can start building yourself again,” Pastor Engel tells him. “You will be able to get a job and make money for yourself. Then you no longer have to bother and clean up here.”

“I’m ready to go, pastor,” says Mr. Johnstan, ready to leave his broken and ruble community in search of a new path.

Those who are closer to him gathered to wish him good. His mother, Angelina on April, holds back tears, despairing that her son will choose her life this time. “Please just do the best of this opportunity, Nanda,” she says.

“Yes, Mom, I always do the best in the situation.”

But it was never easy.

“Fernando’s dad was a gangster, but my father’s father was a gentleman,” says Mr. Johnston’s mother.

“But since he was a gangster, the children also participated in gangsterism, despite the fact that I kept warning them. You know, raised four boys on my own. I always urge him to make changes because I love it very much.”

And so far so good for Mr. Johnston. Two weeks later, he is still there.

“Nando stabilizes. He’s in the program of work. He is busy seeing his family, seeing his children. He visited the house yesterday. We released it, and he returned and passed the check without drugs in his system,” Pastor Engel says.

Hope here is a rare item, but sometimes it occurs through cracks on the streets that have seen so much injury.

But not all the streets. There was very little hope in the house of Devon Africa and the allotted house of Black.

The murder cycle and the payments that have fallen into areas that fight on the very edges of this beautiful South African city are extremely great for many of those who are just fighting to survive.

And those who hit the middle often have to make an impossible choice.

“Community members, even if they oppose the gang, are not necessarily police for two reasons,” says Mr. Newham.

“One of them is that they just do not know what the police actually come when they call the police, they do not have the concept when police officers are corrupt. People do not understand the scale of the problem in South Africa.”

In this war, the mood, which is displayed by peacekeepers on the front line. “No one is going to come anywhere to help or save us. Not from abroad. Not from our local self-government. No one will go with a magic wand to cure the Cape apartments,” says Pastor Engel.

“Like people, we must be so determined as to build stability, create hope for our people and grow. Because politics clearly did not hit us.”