Cele wants tighter laws around firearms, ammunition

He says, recently, suspects seem to have more ammunition to fire at police whenever they pounce on them-resulting in deadly shootouts.

On Tuesday night, four suspects and warrant officer Sthembiso Mazibuko were killed during a shootout in Ntuzuma's C-section, north of Durban.

One of the dead suspects had been wanted in connection with 12 murders committed in the north of Durban over the last two months.

In a separate incident, four alleged robbers believed to have targeted a store in Nsuze were shot and injured in an exchange of fire with police yesterday.

"Yes, they might have stolen the gun somewhere, but we will have to find out who supplies these bullets. You'll find that some of these bullets are bought by the people who have licenses and all that.

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"I think we need to go back and tighten up in this question of the firearm laws and all that ammunition. We can't allow this situation to continue."  

Cele visited both crime scenes on Tuesday night.

He says their intelligence teams are making progress in cracking the criminal syndicates targeting cash vans, businesses and killing people in eThekwini.

"The only price to pay for that long list of 12 people that are killed in two months, not even two months because October is still there, which means this guy was still going to increase this list, the only price for that is that those that he has been working with, because he has not been working alone, the price must be the blood."