The father fights back tears while describing his model son’s metamorphosis into a thieving, violent drug user -– one of a rising number of South African teens falling prey to crystal methamphetamine. ”I am very sad, desperate. We are going through hell,” he says, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief.

South African government ministers on Tuesday turned on citizens bemoaning rampant crime and fleeing a country where about 50 people are murdered every day. ”What we need is partners in the battle against crime, not these eloquent spectators speaking from exaggerated comfort … elsewhere,” Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota told Parliament.

South Africa may have gone a long way to addressing racial injustices but there is a growing acceptance that its huge wealth gap threatens to derail the achievements of the post-apartheid era. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which shone the light on abuses committed by all sides during apartheid, is credited with playing a major role in reconciling the races of South Africa.

A community of shack dwellers in the dusty Cape Town township of Mfuleni gathered on Monday to thank a group of Irish volunteers building brick homes to replace their corrugated iron ones. A group of around 350 volunteers are in Africa’s southernmost city this week to help build 50 houses in Mfuleni as part of a larger project to build 720 houses.