Victims were caught in Cape Town Crosses

The father is extinct in a tight and single bed and has two small bullet holes in his house on the wall.

That’s the strict evidence of a moment that his family life broke forever.

Devon Africa’s four-year-old son died in Davin in February, caught at the cross of a shooting between criminals.

Cape Housing, the municipalities of the city of Cesture, was the victim of the Gang war. Apartheid’s heritage, a white population was outside the center of the richest cities.

“This is the bullet hole here,” he said. “Where he slept.”

The family suffered a terrible horror.

Davin’s main sister, Kelly Amber, died two years earlier, as the enemies fired each other. He was 12 years old.

Devon and his wife, the weakest, do not only stay the youngest daughter.

“He asks me:” Where is my brother? “” He says weak. “So I said with Jesus in my heart and my heart.”

These murders happened in the field known as Wesbank, but many other foreign families in the wider weight of cape had to be suffered by insurance to increase patrols.

The numbers tell a terrifying story. Western Cape Provincial – Cape Housing, according to police, by police, the majority of the murders associated with the gang is seen significantly.

Officially, government policy is priority. President Cyril Ramaphosa created a special unit in 2018 to deal with gang violence. He also opened the army to the next year, but the problem lasted, and the murder has survived.

“There is a whole history and generation of born in these ganges,” says Gareth Newham, head of the Institute of Justice and Violence Prevention Program at the Institute of Security Studies in Johannesburg.

“(No doubt the states bloom in the areas underdeveloped. They offer social structure to communities with no states. Money for transportation. Gang pays to school rates.”

They are embedded in the community and “That’s why it’s so hard to deal with police … I can use homemakers of gangs to store drugs and store weapons.”

But there are people trying to deal with the problem.

Fifteen kilometers (nine kilometers) is far from wesbank, pastor Craven Engel stuck to his mobile phone almost all day, looking for peace every day.

Its mission is to mediate gang conflicts to stop this violence and stop murders, which feeds trade trading made on drugs. He and his team try to follow the basic formula: perception, disruption and change.

“Hanover Park doesn’t really speak economy,” says Pastor Engel. “The biggest part of the economy comes from the drug culture. That is the biggest economy.”

Pastor Engel says that the impact of the apartheid area cannot be forgotten, but it is not a generation trauma – as a drug addiction and then the family breakdown.

“The substance (drugs) creates unemployment, it creates battles against the nougat.

About 50,000 people have to endure shootings and blows almost every day. And they are often young people who are dying and dying.

“Police view is not resolved for being a member of the gang, and to be arrested for being shooting and murders. Then the young members will replace it. And this creates a lot of problems,” says Newham.

“How does a child die at seven times ahead or three times on the back? How did a bullet error hit a child?” Pastor Engel requires.

On his phone, he is constantly calling community leaders and gang kingpins, constantly trying and is in charge of violence. When BBC Africa visits the eyes he is trying to make a bowl break between the two war vaults and gets the leader of one of them to reach the prison.

“If I want something to happen, it still happens. Do you understand the shepherd?” The gang’s head gives hair on the line. “But I can say one thing. If I come under the fire I’m a guy who I like the counter.”

Threats. Also behind the bars.

But pastor engel is constant. It is very impressive in his community, in the house of a parish house or on Sunday in the pulpit in front of a large and loud congregation.

“It’s very horrible, it’s very horrible now that they are involved in gangs in more children, because the gangs hire between eight and 15 years old,” he said.

The program used to obtain government money, but has dried. It will discover supply lines cutting and protecting innocent, victims and authors anywhere and at any time.

It also sends members of the rehabilitated gang, to negotiate directly with war factions. Those who lived on the edge of death know how critical to encourage peace.

Glenn Hans is a person like that. He meets the enemy gangs to convince him to pay homage to the ceasefire. “I was also in this game. If you make a better person you want to be a better person. That’s all,” said a gang team.

One has a cold response: “The more soils, the more land, the more land we can, the more we build it. So I can’t talk peace because this decision is not the decision to ensure peace.”

Eventually the agreed ceasefire lasts a few days, caught two people killing two people on a drive.

But some thick conflict had enough.

Fernando – or Nando – Johnston is located in a gang named Monggrels, and wants to test with the help of Pastor Engel.

In addition to being young Mr. Johnston, he describes his whole family “born”.

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

“I really want to change the direction and I think it’s always there. That’s the reason they approached the shepherd – to ask a plan or a way to take a way.”

He will join the six to 12 week program of the rehabilitation of Pastor and finances charity donations designed to do drugs and work.

“The thing is now starting to build again,” Pastor Engel said. “You will be able to get the job and earn money. Then you don’t want more from here.

“I’m ready, Pastor,” says Johnston, Johnston, who left his wicked and teared community.

The ones who are closest to him have gathered. His mother, Angeline April, holds tears, this time his son will choose life. “Please take advantage of this opportunity, Nando,” he said.

“Yes, mummy, I always take advantage of the best situation.”

But that’s never been easy.

“Fernando’s father was a gangster, but it was my other child’s father,” says Johnston’s mother.

“But because it was a gangster, the children also constantly warned me.

And so far so good for Mr. Johnston. Booting the program two weeks, there is still there.

“Nando is stabilizing. He worked for his family, seeing his children.

Hope is rare for sale here, but sometimes it crosses cracks in the streets that have seen so many trauma.

Not all streets, however. Very little hope is found in Devon Africa and the dollar Koopman’s house, which sits in the middle of a battlefield.

The murder and revenge cycle played in areas fighting in the edges of this beautiful South Africa city for many who are struggling to survive.

And those caught in the middle must often make impossible options.

“Community members, though against gangs, are not necessarily for two reasons,” says Mr. Newham.

“One know if the police really call. And if they call the police, they have no idea if the police are damaged. People do not understand the scale of challenging in south africa.”

Feelings reflected by front pacifists in this war. “No one will come or save it. It will not be saved abroad. Not from our local government. No one will come with a magical wand to heal cape weights,” says Pastor Engel.

“The individuals we need to determine to build resilience, to create and grow hope for our people. Politics has made us clear.”