JOHANNESBURG — Soldiers were deployed on the streets of South Africa’s biggest city on Wednesday after the president announced plans to use the army in several provinces in Africa’s leading economy to help police fight gang violence and illegal mining.
Soldiers were seen in the Johannesburg suburb of Riverlea in the first major deployment since President Cyril Ramaphosa said in his annual speech to the nation last month that he would use the army against organized crime, which he called the greatest threat to democracy and the country’s economic development.
An Associated Press reporter saw a convoy of more than a dozen military vehicles move through the Riverlea suburb, with soldiers jumping out the vehicles to enter some apartment blocks. Riverlea is one area of Johannesburg affected by both gang-related violence and illegal mining.
South Africa’s police and the Department of Defense, which oversees the military, did not immediately provide details on the deployment.
The authorities had previously said the military deployment in different parts of the country would start on March 1, but it was delayed while soldiers were given training in law enforcement protocols. The army will operate under police command during the deployment.
Ramaphosa said in a notice to the Speaker of Parliament that 550 soldiers would be involved in an initial deployment in the Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, to help combat crime and preserve law and order. That deployment would last until the end of April, he said.
The government plans a wider deployment in five of its nine provinces, according to details submitted by police to Parliament. The deployment will focus on illegal mining in the Gauteng, North West and Free State provinces, and gang violence in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces.
Parts of the national deployment could last more than a year, police officials said.
South Africa has high rates of violent crime. Police reported 6,351 homicides from October to December 2025, an average of nearly 70 a day in a country of around 62 million people, while there are also high numbers of attempted murders and violent assaults.
Ramaphosa identified gang violence and illegal mining as especially problematic and connected them both to organized crime. Some of the other areas identified for army deployment included the neighborhoods in and around South Africa’s top tourist city of Cape Town, which have been notorious for years for gang-related violence.
There was no immediate indication if Wednesday’s deployment included other parts of the country the president said would be targeted.
South Africa has deployed the army several times in recent years to help with outbursts of crime and disorder, including in 2021, when riots and looting in two provinces sparked by the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma and frustrations over COVID-19 lockdowns led to the deaths of more than 350 people.
Ramaphosa has said that this deployment of soldiers was carefully considered given the army was used to crush pro-democracy protests during South Africa’s decades of enforced racial segregation under the apartheid system, which ended in 1994.
He said the deployment had “become necessary due to a surge in violent organized crime that threatens the safety of our people and the authority of the state.”
The deployment has largely been welcomed, though some political parties have said it is an admission that police have largely failed to curb crime.
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Associated Press writer Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa contributed.
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