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South Africa's Gun Violence Crisis Claims National Soccer Team's Hero Goalkeeper

Senzo Meyiwa, 27, was shot and killed during a botched armed robbery. He is the latest victim of South Africa's ongoing gun violence problem.
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Senzo Meyiwa, captain of the South African national soccer team, was killed in his girlfriend's home last night. Meyiwa, 27, played club ball for the Orlando Pirates in South Africa's Premier Soccer League. His death was the result of an apparent botched armed robbery. Witnesses say the goalkeeper was shot in the chest in an altercation over a cell phone.

Here's how Reuters reported the incident:

Police said two men entered Khumalo's house on Sunday evening where Meyiwa was in a party of seven in the house. A third assailant waited outside the house and all three fled immediately after the shooting.

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"Two guys entered the house and demanded cellphones, money and other valuables," provincial security official Sizakele Nkosi-Malubane told reporters. "Senzo tried to protect Kelly [his girlfriend] because one of the men had a gun pointed towards her."

A relative newcomer to the Bafana Bafana, Meyiwa made his debut in 2013. In total, he appeared just six times for the full national team but assumed a leadership position almost immediately, captaining the team as it began its 2015 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign. With Meyiwa in goal, South Africa was off to a hot start. He started three of the team's four group-stage qualifying matches and didn't concede a single goal.

"Senzo was not just a goalkeeper. He was a peacemaker. That's the biggest thing I remember about him," South African National Team Coach Shakes Mashaba said at a press conference today.

"A good guy like Senzo will never just vanish. His spirit will live forever," Mashaba continued.

Meyiwa's teammates and other members of the soccer community have begun to tweet their condolences.

No one can prepare you for a loss; it comes like a swift wind. Can't believe #SenzoMeyiwa is gone. My deepest condolences to Meyiwa family

— TsepoMasilela (@TsepoMasilela) October 27, 2014

Beyond devastated at the loss of our captain & friend Senzo Meyiwa. thoughts & prayers are with his family & friends at this terrible time.

— Dean Furman (@de4no22) October 26, 2014

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Thoughts with family, players & fans of @Orlando_Pirates & @BafanaBafana. A senseless, tragic loss. #RIPSenzoMeyiwa pic.twitter.com/fesRHthOP0

— Joseph S Blatter (@SeppBlatter) October 27, 2014

The Orlando Pirates were scheduled to play the Kaizer Chiefs in the Soweto Derby on November 1st. Out of respect, the two teams have decided to postpone the match.

Kaizer Motaung, a South African soccer legend and founder of the Kaizer Chiefs, addressed Meyiwa's murder in a statement on the club's website: "I hope that Senzo's tragic death, another senseless killing of an innocent person that too often happens in our beloved country, will be a call to all South Africans to stand together and address this issue of crime."

South Africa has one of the world's highest rates of violent crime. According to the University of Sydney's Gunpolicy.org, there were 17 gun-related homicides for every 100,000 South Africans in 2007, the last year on record. That same year, the United States—another country where gun violence is a serious problem—had a rate of 4.19 per 100,000. (Even that is high; Germany's rate in 2007 was just 0.07 per 100,000.)

Athletes have not been immune from the rampant gun violence in South Africa. In 2012, former WBO heavyweight champion Corrie Sanders—who shot to fame after knocking out Wladimir Klitschko in a massive upset in 2003—was killed after being shot in the stomach during a botched armed robbery. Like Meyiwa, Sanders is said to have stepped between the assailants and a family member before being shot. And then there's Oscar Pistorius. Pistorius, once a national hero, made world news when he shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, whom he claimed he mistook as a burglar. Pistorius was later convicted of culpable homicide.

The high-profile cases don't capture the scope of the issue, but they make clear that the issue spares no one. Will Meyiwa's death be an impetus for reform or will policy makers remain unable, or unwilling, to change in the aftermath of repeated tragedy, as they have been in the United States? It's obviously too early to tell, but Kaizer Motaung is surely not the only South African hoping that something positive can come out of something so sorrowful, and that Meyiwa's spirit really will live forever.