JOHANNESBURG — “We live in fear, because we are just wondering who is next.”

Those were the chilling words of Father Jeremia Mkhwanazi, the Provincial Secretary of the Catholic Church, as he recalled the assassination of his colleague and other men of the cloth hailing from different Christian denominations who have been recently killed.  

Mkhwanazi’s colleague, Father Paul Tatu Mothobi, a journalist and priest in Pretoria, was found dead in his car on April 27, the same day South Africans celebrate Freedom Day. It commemorates the first post-apartheid elections held on that day in 1994. Tatu’s body was found riddled with bullets.

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Tatu’s murder is the latest in a spate of murders and comes after the March 13 murder of Father William Banda, the Zambian-born member of St. Patrick’s Missionary Society who was shot in the sacristy of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in the Diocese of Tzaneen. It also comes after three Egyptian Coptic monks — Hegumen Takla el-Samuely, Yostos ava Markos and Mina ava Markos — were killed after being stabbed inside a monastery in Cullinan, a town near Pretoria.

These murders come on the heels of a high-profile slaying of another cleric that took place last year. Dwayne Gordon, a guest pastor at Eagles Christian Center in Newlands, was shot and killed during a church service on Oct. 6. Three congregants were also injured in the shooting. 

The crimes against Christian clerics, authorities said, are not related to one another. Instead, South Africa’s overall crime rate — among one of the worst on the continent — has spiked to its highest levels in two decades. At the same time, many see these recent attacks against clerics as an infringement on their religious freedom to worship since Christians are increasingly fearful of going to church as a result of the increased violence.

The Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference mourned Tatu’s death.

“Father Tatu worked for several years as the SACBC media and communications officer with dedication. … We extend our condolences to the Stigmatine congregation, to which he belonged, and to his family,” bishops from Botswana, Eswatini and South Africa said in a statement signed by SACBC President Bishop Sithembele Sipuka. “It must be noted that the death of Father Paul Tatu is not an isolated incident but rather a distressing example of the deteriorating state of security and morality in South Africa.”

In the same statement, the bishops said the murders of both Tatu and Banda occured “amid growing concerns about the increasing disregard for the value of life, where people are wantonly killed.”

At the same time, the bishops called on the South African government to put in place “immediate and effective measures” to protect “law-abiding citizens who work hard to support their families and for our Catholic priests who spend their lives serving the people of this country.”

The bishops went as far as to call the murder spree from becoming “a pandemic” of violence.

“As a church,” the statement added, “we are at your disposal for discussion and strategies to stop the murder of innocent people, which is now becoming a pandemic in this country.”

Meanwhile, the South African Council of Churches — an ecumenical association of affiliated Christian churches and organizations that come together in action for social justice — also denounced the violence and called on more government action ahead of national elections, which are slated for May 29.

The Rev. Mzwandile Molo, the acting general Secretary of the SACC, said all churches are places of refuge and that most of the targeted churches in these attacks are located in poor communities and townships. 

“The indiscriminate killing of innocent people who go to church to worship God is a cowardly act done by criminals who know that people are defenseless as they come to worship,” Molo said. “This cannot be allowed to continue unchecked.”

Vicky Abraham is an investigative journalist based in South Africa and has reported for the Mail & Guardian, City Press, Assist News, the Nation newspaper in Nigeria and Nation Media Group in Kenya.