Former gangster laments brutality of gang violence gripping Cape Flats

CAPE TOWN - The oldest gang war in Cape Town between the Yuru Cats and the Mongrels gangs is once again raging on the Cape Flats.

Residents in Ottery and the surrounding Lotus River and Grassy Park areas have been gripped in the ongoing violence for more than a month.

Sources say that more than ten people have been killed in the area since the gang war started. In the latest incident, a 24-year-old man was killed and three others injured in a shooting on Wednesday night.

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Ottery resident and reformed gangster, Brandon Eckhardt, said that the violence was the worst he's seen.

"In all of the 20 years that I have been in Ottery, I have never seen a gang war like this. And it's sad when I see the brutality of these kids that they have now. It's sad to see how the area has just fallen to the dogs now. Gangs run it now."

Eckhardt said that the manner in which rival gangs were killing each other had become more brutal.

"The Cape Flats is filled with psychopathic killers... these boys are ruthless. I mean, if I can walk up to you, look you in the eye and pull a trigger, and then walk on and have a normal day, that's not normal. So, we have a whole bunch of kids doing this. Before we'd see it come from evil gangs like we know in the past..."

Police said that serious and violent crimes detectives and law enforcement units were busy with operations to end the gang war.