South African police have hired psychologists to figure out the causes of a murder epidemic that kills nearly 60 people killed every day.

Murder, rape, and robbery all increased in South Africa between April 2018 and March 2019, police said on Thursday, in the latest acknowledgement that a violent crime wave that has been described as worse than a war zone is still not under control.

Mr Bheki Cele, the police minister, said the government was now turning to mental health experts and sociologists to figure out patterns in the killings, including a weekly increase in murders on Friday nights and a high proportion of slayings by family members and close friends.

"A very high number of people are murdered by the people that they know," Mr Cele told parliament. The only bright spot, he said, was that the rate of increase in murders had halved since 2017-2018, when it increased by 1320.

"This means the rate of increase is slowing down. However, when this is translated to percentage change; the figure reflects an increase of 2.6% in all contact crimes and the 17 community-reported crimes increased by 0.7 percent," he said.