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Families in the northern suburbs - Bryanston, Randburg, Honeydew - are reportedly under constant attack from armed black gangs, it was revealed. In a report in the local Sandton newspaper, it was found in a door-to-door survey by a journalist that almost every house on Green Street and the surrounding roads in Bryanston East has been robbed or ransacked more than once.
Residents - too terrified to reveal their names -- said they lived in constant terror of the next time their families would be attacked.
A door-to-door survey of households on Porchester Road for instance found that each house had been repeatedly targetted by armed-robbery gangs over the past 2 years.
One resident who has lived there for 20 years also was severely traumatised by a shoot-out between police and robbers outside her property last year, after her house was broken into.
The entire suburb's families are being terrorised, one female resident said. Her family has lived in the area for three years and been robbed on three separate occasions.
In the latest incident three armed men forced their way onto her property, after she had seen guests off one evening.
“They bound our hands with shoelaces, reinforced the binds at least three times after that, separated me from my family and gagged me. Then they took all our jewellery, cash and whatever other valuables they could lay their hands on.”
These residents don’t want their community ignoring crime in their suburb.
“We are lulled into a false sense of security because we have armed response teams, high security walls and panic buttons but these cannot keep criminals at bay.
"We need an increased police presence and there should be a dedicated team working at eradicating this recurring problem. We need to feel safe again in our homes.”
SAPS captain Kym Cloete of the Sandton police acknowledged the high incident of "housebreakings" in the suburb and said they were working on it.
Cloete said the best way to differentiate between suspicious and normal behaviour was to know your neighbours.
“If you are aware of their visitors and routines you will easily be able to tell if something is wrong.”
http://www.looklocal.co.za/looklocal/content/en/sandton/sandton-news-crime?oid=4705994&sn=Detail&pid=217516&Northern-suburbs-under-attack