South African police have warned members of the public in the Northern Cape province against hitchhiking following a spike in the number of carjacking incidents.
Police spokesperson Nomthandazo Mnisi said a syndicate is suspected of being involved in the carjacking incidents under the guise of offering or asking for lifts, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) reports.
Mnisi urged those who plan to hitchhike to do so in groups, with new cases of carjacking reported at Hartswater and Kuruman districts ‘’in the same month.’’
''These could be the work of a syndicate operating in the two districts… where at one stage it’s criminals pretending to be hitchhikers while on the other incidents it’s hitchhikers being robbed by the criminals pretending to offer the lift,” he said.
High case figures
Research platform Statista reports that 22,742 carjackings occurred in South Africa in 2023.
In his October State of the Nation address, President Cyril Ramaphosa said he had increased the boots on the ground to tackle ‘’criminal elements in the country''
In February 2015, South Africa’s minister of tourism, Derek Hanekom, survived an attempted carjacking as his bodyguards and the carjackers exchanged fire.
In October 2007, carjackers shot and killed Lucky Dube, an international reggae star and one of the nation’s best-known musicians, apparently in a carjacking attempt.
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