The street where kids live in fear
Gang wars see parents keep children indoors
RESIDENTS OF DISA Street in Lentegeur, Mitchells Plain, live in fear daily as ongoing gang wars have rendered them helpless. For the past two weeks, they have experienced a string of murders and violent attacks.
Fadiel Adams said things are getting out of hand. “There is a massive gang war going on and it’s been rough. On Tuesday evening they began shooting again,” he said.
Shootings normally occur just as the sun sets around 7pm.
A massive gang war over turf is brewing between the Dixie Boys and the Cisko Yakkies who are trying to overpower the Dixi Boys who are residing in the area.
“When you look outside, you don’t see any kids because it’s too dangerous for them to play outside,” Adams said.
A shop owner from Pakistan, who lives opposite Adams, said crime has been spiralling out of control for some time.
“Because of the crime in this road it’s affected my livelihood a lot. I use to keep the shop open until late but because of all the shootings, I can’t now. I have to close early,” Sadam Hussain said.
He now is forced to open his shop at 7am and closes at 9pm. “It usually closed much later than that.”
A woman, who agreed to talk on condition she remained anonymous, said she was forced to keep her three children indoors when they returned from school.
“The people around here watch who you speak to. I cannot make myself known because they will attack my family.
“I lock them inside; I don’t allow them outside. This is the worst; the situation has gotten really out of hand,” she said.
She added she can see that her children want to play outdoors but she said it’s for their own good.
Residents around the area had reservations about speaking to the media in fear of their lives. Some residents also lambasted their ward councillor, Goawa Timm, for not doing enough to stop the gang violence. Timm said she is aware of the ongoing shootings in the area.
“I am aware of the shootings and I have spoken to the Minister of Community Safety and he said he would be coming to the area to assess the current situation.”
Timm also called on the community to assist where they can.
“The people who are saying that I am not proactive are the ones who are not supporting us. I cannot solve this by myself; they need to assist us so that we can work together,” Timm said.
In August, the war between the two gangs claimed three lives, bringing the death toll to eight in just one week.
THE PEOPLE AROUND HERE WATCH WHO YOU SPEAK TO. I CANNOT MAKE MYSELF KNOWN BECAUSE THEY WILL ATTACK MY FAMILY
LAST Sunday afternoon my neighbour’s grandson was shot multiple times at close range, he died the next day.
His name was Sandro. At 8.15 this evening a young man was gunned down in front of my home. He was alive when he was loaded into a car and rushed to hospital because after multiple calls to 10111 no ambulance was in sight. His name was Ashton.
Minutes later another adolescent was shot, metres from my door, by one of his peers. I knew him only as Naanie.
That these kids are shot by people who look, dress and talk like them is as hard to understand as the fact that they were almost definitely shot with guns supplied by the very same police that are supposed to serve and protect.
The police service arrived, two vehicles at a time, six in total, I can only deduce that these fine officers are fearful of travelling alone in an area we are expected to live in.
I have been labelled an ANC-paid writer for highlighting these types of happenings because, apparently, that’s all they are to the people in power, happenings.
All three shootings are gang related, on the Cape Flats almost everything is.
Does anyone in high office ask why the gangs are all powerful where we live? Allow me to save you the trouble. When you impose unfair demographics in the workplace you condemn a generation of coloured boys and girls to the non existent mercy of millionaire gang bosses.
When government allowed the flooding of our markets with cheap Chinese-made clothing you put our mothers out of work. When you sold us the World Cup lie, you killed the construction industry. Most of our fathers sit on the scrap heap of unemployment.
The violence in my area will never stop, not while we look to government, national or otherwise, for a solution. Tomorrow, as every other day, another mother will bury her child, an act that is as unnatural as it is sickening. Yet every senseless murder will end with “a murder docket has been opened and no arrests have been made” the generic answer.
In spite of repeated promises, we can no longer wait, because if you want to solve the problems on the Cape Flats you need to be able to navigate it without a GPS. Yes, alleged leaders, I’m talking about you.
Before the denials and blame shifting begin, is there a grand plan to uplift the indigenous people of this province? Or is this madness a part of it? In the absence of action and accountability we, the indigenous people of this province, have a right to protect ourselves by any means necessary. Both the ANC and the DA have consistently failed my people. A vote for either means a vote for a slow, painful genocide. The First Nation must stand together, must stand up, it is time.
FADIEL ADAMS Lentegeur