Cape Town's taxi violence: what is happening, who it hurts and what it means if you are travelling

Most people in Cape Town who do not own a car get around in minibus taxis, the white Toyota Quantums and Hyundai H1s that run fixed routes between the townships, the city centre and the industrial areas. The taxis are privately owned and organised into associations, and each association holds operating permits for particular routes. When two associations claim the same route, the argument has repeatedly been settled with guns, and the people who pay for it are the drivers who get shot and the passengers who suddenly have no way to reach work, school or a clinic.

That is what has happened in the last ten days. The Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (CATA) and the Cape Organisation for the Democratic Taxi Association (CODETA) are again in conflict, this time reportedly over a route linking Delft, Langa and Epping. Several drivers and operators have been shot dead, ranks have closed, and on Friday the disruption reached the airport. The shootings have happened at taxi ranks and on roads in the townships of the Cape Flats, not in the areas where most visitors stay.

The account below is built from police statements and reports by Eyewitness News, IOL, the Cape Times and Cape Town Etc. Numbers of dead and injured differ between reports, partly because some shootings have not been formally linked to the taxi dispute, so we give the figure each source gave and name it.

A minibus taxi route is a business. The busiest ones, from large townships such as Khayelitsha, Delft and Mfuleni to places of work in Bellville, Epping and the city centre, carry thousands of passengers a day, and every seat is paid for in cash. The province issues operating licences for specific routes, and an association that controls a rank effectively decides who may load passengers there. When an association starts running taxis on a route that another regards as its own, or when the paperwork for a route is disputed, the quarrel can turn into targeted shootings of drivers, owners and rank marshals.

CATA and CODETA are the two biggest associations in the Western Cape, and their rivalry has broken into violence many times. In July 2021 a weeks-long conflict between them ended in a ceasefire after a series of killings, and a formal peace agreement followed in June 2025. In early September 2026 the two signed another agreement after several deadly attacks linked to the Somerset West route, which the province had closed for a time the year before, and the provincial Department of Mobility said at the time that it would go to court if either side broke it. Minister Sileku put it bluntly this week: of the province's eight taxi regions, he said, whenever there is an impasse in the industry it is always these two.

Why a route dispute reaches the airport

Airports do not run on the travellers who fly. Cleaners, security screeners, check-in agents, baggage handlers and shop staff mostly live in the townships and commute by taxi, often on early shifts that start before dawn. When the ranks in Nyanga, Delft or Khayelitsha close, or people decide it is too dangerous to stand at one, those shifts are not filled. That is a direct line from a rank in Delft to a security queue at the airport, with no protest anywhere near the terminal.

Friday is one of the busiest days of the week for domestic flights out of Cape Town. With about half of ACSA's own staff absent in the morning, security screening slowed sharply. One traveller told Eyewitness News she had queued for six hours for a flight to George. By 13:00 ACSA counted 60 delayed flights, the large majority of them domestic departures, and no cancellations. Stranded travellers told News24 that some flights left up to two hours late. In the afternoon the airport said its staffing levels had stabilised and normal operations had resumed.

The airport queue made international news, but it was the smallest part of Friday's disruption. For a family in Khayelitsha or Delft the taxi is not one option among several; it is usually the only affordable way to get anywhere. When the taxis stop, or when the ranks feel too dangerous to use, a domestic worker cannot reach the house where she works, a nurse cannot reach her clinic, a child cannot reach school, and a pensioner cannot reach the pay point. The City warned this week that further violence would affect thousands of people who depend on minibus taxis to get to work, school and essential services.

The losses are uneven. Someone paid by the day loses that day's income outright, and someone who misses several shifts can lose a job. Children who rely on a contracted taxi to get to school miss lessons when it does not come. The timing is especially bad: the matric exams are under way, which is why CODETA's spokesperson, Makhosandile Tumana, appealed for calm on behalf of the learners writing them. Care organisations, small shops and building sites lose staff who simply cannot get there. None of these costs fall on the people running the associations.

Tourism carries a cost too, though a different one. Cape Town depends on visitors, and pictures of crowded airport halls under a "taxi war" headline travel quickly. That damage is real, but it should not be confused with the risk to a visitor, which has stayed low: the violence has been directed at people inside the taxi industry, at ranks in residential areas far from the hotels, beaches and mountain.

There is no reason to cancel a trip to Cape Town because of this dispute. The City Bowl, the Atlantic Seaboard, the Winelands, Table Mountain and the beaches have not been affected by the shootings, and flights kept operating on Friday, only later than planned. What does change is how much time you should allow and how you get around.

Police statistics show how unevenly violence is spread across the city. In the twelve months from July 2025 to June 2026 the SAPS recorded 3,559 murders at the police stations of the City of Cape Town, 3% fewer than in the twelve months before. The six stations covering the townships where this week's shootings and rank closures happened (Mfuleni, Delft, Nyanga, Gugulethu, Khayelitsha and Langa) recorded 1,170 of them, about a third. The four stations covering the city centre, Sea Point, Camps Bay and the harbour recorded 9 between them. These counts include every murder, not only taxi-related ones, but they explain why the risk for someone staying in the City Bowl or on the Atlantic Seaboard is of a different order from the risk for a commuter in Delft.

If you depend on taxis, check with your rank or your association's marshals in the morning before you set out, and have a second plan ready: a Golden Arrow bus, a lift club with colleagues or, where it runs, the train. When taxis stop, buses and trains fill up quickly, so leave earlier than usual. Do not wait at a rank where there has been a shooting in the past few days.

If you employ people who commute by taxi, the most useful thing you can do is be flexible: let staff start later or leave earlier, pay for a ride-hailing trip on the worst days, and do not dock wages for a day nobody could have travelled. Schools and care homes that rely on a contracted taxi should ask the operator in advance whether it will run, so that parents can make other plans.

Information about crimes can be given anonymously to Crime Stop on 08600 10111. The City's tip line, mentioned by the mayor this week, is 0800 110 077. In an emergency, call 10111 for the police or 112 from a mobile phone.

A meeting between the two associations, first planned for Thursday 29 October, was moved to Monday 2 November, when the provincial government and the City are due to sit down with the leadership of both. CODETA has said publicly that it wants an agreement. The Department of Mobility is also examining whether the associations involved have the legal right to operate on the disputed routes, and has asked for more visible policing at the affected ranks.

Past agreements show both what is possible and what is fragile. The ceasefires of 2021, 2025 and September 2026 each stopped the killing for a while, but none removed the underlying fight over routes and licences. A lasting settlement probably needs the province to decide clearly who may operate where, and to enforce that decision, so that violence stops paying. Until then, the realistic expectation is that services return within days, as they did on Friday afternoon, while the risk of another flare-up remains.