Three robbers made off with service pistols, cellphones and a laptop after hitting a police station in the Western Cape on Saturday.

Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union spokesperson Richard Mamabolo said the armed suspects approached two officers who were on duty at the community services centre at the Sir Lowry’s Pass satellite police station and held them at gunpoint at 9pm.

“They disarmed the police officers and fled with two 9mm service pistols, three cellphones and a laptop computer,” said Mamabolo.

Mamabolo said no one was injured during the incident. He added that there had been similar incidents across the country where police stations are targeted.

“This brazen attack is part of a continued sequence of attacks targeted at law enforcement officers across different provinces, having left many officers either injured or deceased. They take place at a time when the criminal justice cluster is faced with many internal challenges, including understaffing and the lack of sufficient resources in efficiently servicing communities, and therefore further fuelling avoidable tensions between the two,” said Mamabolo.

“Any attack on police stations is an attack on the community as it diminishes the communities’ and law enforcement agencies’ capacity to defend and fight off criminality... We call on members of society to shed light on the circumstances around this and other similar attacks so as to bring the perpetrators to book.”