Two Cape Flats children were wounded when they got caught in the middle of a gang shoot-out.
|||Cape Town - Two Kalksteenfontein children were wounded when they got caught in the crossfire of a gang shooting at the weekend.
The young victims - eight-year-old Moegamat Swanepoel and 12-year-old Gershwin Petersen - were in Salvia Street on Sunday when they were hit.
Moegamat was shot in the foot and Gershwin in the thigh. They were taken to Tygerberg Hospital and returned home on Monday morning.
Moegamat, who was still in pain, said he’d been playing with balloons with his cousins when he was shot.
“We heard the shots and then ran to the house. While I was running I could feel the pain in my leg and I then fell on the doorstep,” he said.
Moegamat’s grandmother, Johanna Jansen, said she’d been watching the children from the yard when the shooting started. “After the first shot I called them to come inside the house and when Moegamat came he cried out, ‘Ma, ma, my foot!’ showing me his injured foot,” she said.
His mother, Kashiefah Swanepoel, was furious. “If I could just find out who did this to my child, I will take him to be arrested. They could have killed my baby,” she said.
Moegamat said he feared for his safety - “I’m never going to play outside again”.
Gershwin said he feared he’d never be able to play soccer again. “I want to be a soccer player when I’m older and I play for Manenberg’s Celtics club but I’m scared that my leg won’t heal.”
He lives one street away from Moegamat, and said he’d been on his way to buy a packet of biscuits when he’d been wounded. “When they shot me I ran to the other house and fell.”
His mother, Chantelle Petersen, said she’d run after her son when she heard the shots but before she managed to reach him other children said that he’d been hit.
“I can’t keep my eyes away from my children anymore because I’m scared anything can happen with the gangs,” she said.
An unnamed resident told the Cape Argus that the shooting was the result of rivalry between the 26s and the 28s gangs, and followed the unconfirmed death of a 17-year-old who’d been shot on Saturday.
Provincial police spokesman Captain FC van Wyk
said an attempted murder investigation had started after the shooting of the two boys but no arrests had been made.
zodidi.dano@inl.co.za
Cape Argus