00:00One of South Africa's political parties holds a community meeting in Guguletu in Cape Town.
00:05It's an area long plagued by violent crime.
00:08They rape and kill, they shoot each other, and then we are living in fear in Guguletu.
00:17People of Guguletu, they are scared to go outside.
00:20From Nyanga to Guguletu, these impoverished neighborhoods remain deeply unsafe.
00:26They border the N2, a major highway linking the airport to the city center.
00:31Motorists report stones hurled at vehicles, violent robberies, and ambush-style attacks.
00:39Dumezanit Koebez worked for years with the Community Policing Forum, trying to curb violence in the area.
00:45Despite repeated interventions, crime persists.
00:49If we might have a proper camera here installed, believe me,
00:56the issue of crime here in Nyanga will decrease.
00:59This stretch of road is so dangerous, it's widely known as the Hell Run.
01:05Now the city wants to build what it's calling a security wall along Cape Town's end to highway.
01:11It says it's to safeguard Motris and the community here.
01:17City authorities say the three-meter-high wall could extend up to eight kilometers
01:21and cost roughly nine million dollars.
01:25We have to do what we can so that a major freeway that serves freight and commuting
01:31and access to your airport does not become an impossible space.
01:35And I think anybody who has been affected by this, anybody whose family has had a brick hurled through their
01:41window
01:42or has hit a person at night which they couldn't see because the person was wearing dark clothes
01:47and ran across the road, will not be speculating or debating the matter.
01:52In a post on Instagram, Cape Town's mayor, Jordan Hill-Lewis, promotes the wall,
01:58speaking to residents who support its construction.
02:02In a country where many argue economic apartheid remains entrenched,
02:06more than 30 years after the dawn of democracy, the proposal is contentious.
02:12Others say the wall will only separate poor communities from wealthier parts of the city.
02:17The wall is not going to do any difference to us.
02:22I see no, no, it's not going to help us anyway.
02:29The battle over this wall for many reflects a deeper question,
02:33whether security can be built with concrete in a country still struggling to dismantle the invisible walls of inequality.
02:41Famida Muller, Al Jazeera, Cape Town.
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