BULLETPROOF glass playgrounds will be built in South Africa to protect children from gang shootings.
Secure play areas will be equipped with facial recognition and panic buttons to keep violent gangsters away.
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As heavily armed criminals rampage through the streets of South Africa, children often become “collateral damage” in the fight for territory.
Innocent children are caught between bullets in the middle of townships as the nation fights gun violence.
Over the past 20 years, almost half of children hospitalized in Cape Town with gunshot wounds were victims of crossfire, according to research.
Most schools install bulletproof mesh around their perimeter fences, while teachers instruct students to duck under desks at the first sound of gunshots.
But children remain unprotected outside school territory when they walk home or go to the playground.
To combat this widespread problem, Gun Free SA, an NGO fighting gun violence, introduced its prototype Bulletproof Park Project.
Conceptual images show a bulletproof glass cube that is equipped with panic buttons and a direct line to the police.
Around 24 children will be able to play safely on the swings, slides and sandboxes at the same time under the surveillance of security cameras.
Tickets will be the responsibility of parents and only those who are registered in the facial recognition system will be allowed access.
GFSA director Adele Kirsten said: “We have been campaigning for 25 years to eradicate the root cause of this problem, which is guns on the streets, but things have gotten worse and we are plagued by gang violence.
“The bulletproof park is a pretty outrageous solution to an outrageous problem, but until the police remove illegal guns and destroy them, we need to take action to make real change.”
The solar-powered playground will open for the first time in the Mitchell’s Plain area of Cape Town, where many child deaths have been reported.
The project is estimated to cost £425,000 to build, a small price to pay for children’s lives.
In comparison, medical treatment for gunshot victims amounted to around £260 million in 2014 alone.
To protect children going to and from school, the NGO is also developing bulletproof vests.
Kirsten added: “The simplest, most workable and sensible solution is a stronger system to get guns off the streets and destroy them, but until then we need to act to keep our children safe.”
The NGO said it is “scandalous” that they have had to design such parks, but said the plans will be submitted to the City of Cape Town for approval later this year.
Cape Flats Security Forum chair Abie Isaacs expressed his support for the project, saying: “Communities are plagued by gang violence and many parents fear their children will be hit by a gang bullet.
“We welcome the proposals because we believe parks should be a safe space for children and now our parks have become homes for gangs to carry out their activities.”
Armed bandits often compete for drugs and territory in poverty-stricken municipalities where children have nowhere to play safely.
Criminologist Guy Lamb said: “Given the areas of the borough where these things happen, the houses are small, so a lot of children play in the streets because they don’t have gardens.
“Gangsters shoot randomly and wildly so that children get caught in the crossfire.”
According to research conducted on A&E, 163 children were admitted for firearm-related injuries between 2001 and 2010 at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town.
Of them, 63 were accidentally hit in a shootout and 30 more went directly to the morgue.
Eastern Cape Department of Education spokesperson Mr Malibongwe Mtima confirmed the shocking statistics and said they would spend an additional £3 million to improve security.
Gun Free SA said: “In the year 2022/3, around 11,300 people were killed by firearms and 10% of those gangs were linked to too many victims, young children hit by stray bullets.”
The latest victim of the horrific gang killings was 16-year-old Zamawushe Momoti, who was shot dead outside her school on Friday when a bullet hit her in the face.
She stumbled past the belgravia gates of the secondary school in Cape Town and died in a pool of blood as the shooting continued.
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