Cape Town - More young men die prematurely in the Western Cape due to gun-related incidents than anywhere else in South Africa, according to the Rapid Review of the Burden of Diseases report.

The report, launched by Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo, stated that the rate of homicides due to guns doubled from 2010 to 2016 and from 2010 to 2018 there has been a year-on-year increase in the annual number of homicides among men.

The report aimed to highlight the province’s position with regard to health, the distribution of social determinants on health and selected interventions used in the province.

Most of the increases in homicides were in the Cape Town Metro with Klipfontein, Mitchells Plain, Tygerberg, and Khayelitsha having the highest age-standardised homicide mortality rates in men in 2016.

Lentegeur community policing forum (CPF) chairperson Byron de Villiers said changing the statistics would have to begin in the home. “In Lentegeur, it is mostly gang-related killings. There’s drug wars, turf wars and we lose our kids young.”