One autumn afternoon in 2006, Phil Du was driving a group of Chinese tourists around in the outskirts of Johannesburg. He noticed a white Iveco van behind him on an otherwise empty road. Suddenly the van sped up and passed in front of him. Then it stopped.

A street corner in Johannesburg. The pedestrians in the city are largely black people, since white people enjoy a higher economic status and are paranoid of the high crime rate in South Africa. [Maverick Chen / China.org.cn]

Three men, all holding AK-47 assault rifles, jumped out of the van. "I am going to send you to Heaven!" one of them yelled. "Take everything out!"

Du tried to remain calm in front of his terrified passengers. He offered to negotiate with the men, pleading with them not to harm those in his care. But one of the men held up his gun to Du's head and ordered Du to follow the van to a secluded area.

"We drove for maybe 45 minutes, deep into a valley," Du said. There, the men ordered all 10 or so passengers to give up their valuables – jewelry, electronics and lots of cash meant to purchase South Africa's diamonds with – and then fled. "Luckily, no one was hurt."

Such hijackings and robberies are not uncommon in the developing nation of 49 million. Meanwhile, official statistics show that the murder rate from 2009 to 2010 was 34.1 per 100,000 people, making South Africa one of the deadliest countries in the world. Though violent crime has fallen rapidly since the end of apartheid in 1994, a "staggering 50 murders, 100 rapes, 330 armed robberies and 550 violent assaults are recorded" daily, according to a 2010 Economist article citing a World Competitiveness Survey. Most of the decrease has come from a fall in homicides, but rape – already thought to be underreported – and hijackings have shown signs of increase.