Cape Flats moms miss lost sons
Pain of violent deaths hurts afresh around Youth Day
TUESDAY JUNE 12 2018
AS YOUTH Day approaches, mothers who lost their sons owing to violence on the Cape Flats spoke about the dreams they had for them and what they would have become had they lived .
Kashiefa Mohamad from Hanover Park, whose son Rafik was stabbed to death in March last year, said she was struggling to cope withhis death.
“I feel very hurt because during this time I look at other young people making a success of their lives and it makes me emotional,” Mohamad said. Her 17-year old boy was stabbed on her birthday.
“He told me before he died he wanted to study criminal justice and he had such a passion for it,” she said. “When they murdered my son my whole life changed and they ripped my family apart,” she said.
Anthea Smith, also from Hanover Park said her son Keegan wanted to be a soccer player and loved sports. “Last month was his birthday; he would have turned 21. I struggle to come to terms… he was such an incredible boy,” Smith said.
Keegan died in May 2016, shot in the head in a drive-by shooting. “When I saw his body lying there, I really wanted to die with him,” she said. She joined a support group to help her.
With it being the month of Ramadaan, Rasieda McDavids said she was crying, as she always did at this time.
“My son Ikeraam, 30, was my everything. He was my youngest and we were very close. He always had dreams of being either a lawyer or a doctor,” McDavids said.
She said her son was passionate about helping people in need. Ikeraam was shot last August in Hanover Park.
She said that on the day she saw him in the hospital “I just ran out… I just wanted to crawl into a corner and never come out. I have so many questions on how this could’ve happened,” she said.
Carmen Petersen from Ottery lost both of her sons after they were murdered in two separate incidents.
“My eldest son. Rafik, 17, wanted to work in the Navy,” she said. He was shot in October 2011 in Ottery and Sharief, 14, was shot Rocklands that December. Sharief was still thinking about his future.
“When that happened that was the biggest blow,” she said.