Two students detained at South African school after gun found in backpack
In the city of Atlantis, South Africa, police detained two students at Saxonsea Secondary School on August 28, 2026, after a firearm was found in a backpack. Law enforcement officers later reported that the weapon had belonged to a deceased person. The students’ parents removed them from the school, so the institution was unable to continue disciplinary proceedings, Daily Maverick reports.
Weapons in schools
Bronagh Hammond, a representative of the Western Cape Education Department, said that the overwhelming majority of students follow the rules, but that they occasionally bring weapons to schools. According to her, the reasons may include feeling a need for self-defense on the way to school, attempts to intimidate others, or other unacceptable motives. She stressed that possessing a weapon on school grounds is unacceptable and should result in appropriate intervention and disciplinary measures.
A similar case occurred in Macassar in November 2025. After reports that a weapon had been brought to a school, police detained two teenagers and seized a modified imitation firearm and live ammunition.
In the Eastern Cape, 70 students were detained for carrying firearms during the 2021/22–2025/26 financial years, including 21 in the most recent financial year. Over this five-year period, police also seized 46 firearms from schoolchildren. These data were contained in written responses to parliamentary questions.
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Security measures and data
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube said that during the first school term of 2026, the provinces that submitted data reported 498 search-and-seizure operations. However, she did not specify which items were found during these inspections.
In Gauteng, searches had been conducted at 23 schools by the beginning of September, private security had been deployed at 422 institutions, and surveillance cameras had been installed at 606 sites. Previous operations had uncovered knives, machetes, drugs, and vapes. In Mpumalanga, inspections found knives, machetes, hammers, cannabis, illegal cigarettes, and crushed pills.
Mpumalanga Premier Mandla Ndlovu said that 25 incidents of knife violence or firearm violence at schools were recorded in the province in 2025, including two murders on educational institution premises.
Claire Taylor, an analyst at Gun Free South Africa, said that more than 30,000 weapons in the Western Cape are effectively outside the licensing system because their owners have died and heirs have not settled ownership rights. According to her, South Africa has no nationwide system for tracking firearm incidents in schools and no reliable data on the number of students who carry weapons or are involved in their illegal circulation.
