Law and order has certainly ceased to exist in our country, as murderers, rapists, hijackers, druggies and criminals go on the rampage.

Some crimes are acts of savagery, that adequate words cannot explain.

South Africans are enmeshed in a culture of death which now involves femicide, raping women and children and even killing of homeless people.

These savages have created a wound in our society and the infection continues to weaken us with fear.

With each breaking news of brutal murder, we are jolted and dismayed.

Human life is sacred. Whoever takes it thus strikes against, not just his victim, but against the very moral foundation of society and sends out destructive waves into society.

Its amplitude can never be attenuated if the crime is left unpunished, or punished inadequately.

The culture of death in our rainbow nation embodies consummate evil. Recently the nation became transfixed when xenophobia engulfed the country like a toxic plague. The damage done cannot be reversed.

Complacency, acquiescence and apathy become the response. By our silence we invite the spirit of death into our country and homes.

We seem to view ghastly murders as mere statistics, yet whenever it occurs we lose that little which sustains us and holds us together.

Farouk Araie, Actonville, Benoni