“This Is Painful”: SA Left Fuming After Armed Robbers Target Church in Cape Town in TikTok Video

An armed man walked into an AFM church during a live Sunday service in Samora Machel, Cape Town, on 7 June 2026, and robbed congregants of their cellphones and belongings.

The robbery was caught on camera during a live broadcast for the church’s international following and later shared on TikTok by @newsnexussa. The brazen suspect did not bother wearing a mask.

The man greeted the congregation before announcing they already knew what was happening and had to comply. When members hesitated to hand over their phones, he threatened to shoot. Nobody was physically harmed, but the audacity of robbing people mid-worship left South Africa fuming.

No safe space left in Cape Town

Cape Town has had military boots on the ground before, yet crime continues to find new lows. Samora Machel is one of many communities where residents wake up to that reality every single day. For most South Africans, a church has always felt like the one place criminals would not dare to enter.

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Sunday proved that wrong in the most public way possible. The suspect’s face is clearly visible in the footage, giving investigators a solid place to start. South Africans online were not holding back their frustration, with many demanding to know where the army was.

Others pointed to a deeper problem that no deployment has fully solved. Cape Town’s crime crisis does not pause for prayer, and Mzansi is tired of watching it play out in real time.

Watch the TikTok clip below:

More crime in Cape Town

• A bloody weekend across the Cape Flats left at least 38 people shot or stabbed between 22 May and 25 May 2026.
• One person was killed, and three others were injured in two separate shootings on the Cape Flats.
• Multiple shootings were reported across the Cape Flats, with several killed and others injured.

Source: Briefly News