Anglican and Roman Catholic Church leaders in Cape Town have expressed grave concern about rising violence by gangsters and others in the city and about the establishment of a Muslim vigilante group determined to punish the gangsters.

On 4 August about 200 masked members of a Cape Town Muslim anti-drug vigilante group killed Rashaad Staggie, leader of the Hard Livings gang. The vigilante group's members said they were angry that police were unable or unwilling to fight crime.

In a pastoral letter on 13 August the Anglican Diocese of Cape Town said it understood the frustration and fear of residents in drug- and crime-infested areas of the city in the face of escalating lawlessness. It also said that the rise of gangsterism was connected to "appalling social conditions" under which many people lived, coupled with poverty and unemployment.

"However, we have to say that murder, violence, rape, crime and drug trafficking cannot be condoned under any circumstances," the diocese said. "When citizens take the law into their own hands, for whatever apparently good reasons, they will inevitably undermine the foundation of a sound democratic society."

Law and order needed a sound police force and an effective judicial system free of corruption, the pastoral letter added.