Content warning: Disturbing details follow below.
An hour after he landed in South Africa in November, Walter Fischel was shot in the face by robbers. The 55-year-old US tourist had been following the directions on a global positioning system (GPS) in the hired car he was driving from Cape Town International Airport to his rental accommodation in Simons Town.
The shortest route on the GPS had led Fischel to Nyanga township. There, he later told journalists, his car was surrounded by a group of men who shot him and made off with the car, his money and passport.
In August, Kar Hao Teoh, a British surgeon, was gunned down in the area while using the route to avoid roads closures. Nyanga on the Cape Flats in Cape Town and the areas that surrounding it are notorious for violent crime.
In the wake of the attacks, the authorities asked Google Maps to remove the crime hot spot from its GPS options.
High crime levels
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