Khayelitsha robbers kill two
A GANG of criminals in Khayelitsha robbed residents and killed two young men, one of them a matric pupil, during a home invasion.
Police spokesperson Andrè Traut said two males were shot and killed during an apparent house robbery in Mawisa Street, Lingelethu West, at the weekend.
Traut said the unknown suspects fled with television sets and a laptop, but had yet to be arrested. The circumstances were under investigation.
Mihlali Funde, 18, a matric pupil at Rhodes High School in Mowbray, was shot and killed at his home during an alleged robbery. Odwa Tom, 21, died while his parents rushed him to Khayelitsha Hospital.
Mihlali’s mother, Lorna, said she was not at home at the time that the four suspects came in, stole three flat screen TVs, four cellphones and killed her son.
Lorna said her son was never involved in any criminal activities but alleged the criminals wanted her sister’s child, who had been involved in criminal activities.
Her neighbour, Babalwa Qumba, said she was still shaking with fear because the robbers also went to her home and asked her to open the door.
“I refused to open, and they decided to shoot at my car,” said Qumba, who stays with her wheelchair-bound mother, also traumatised because of the incident.
Tom’s mother, Thobeka Salmani, said she wanted answers as to why her child had been killed.
“I got a call telling me to come quickly because my son had been shot,“she said.
Community members from other sections in Site B, Khayelitsha, also claimed criminals were terrorising them, and that some broke into their homes asking for flat screen TVs and stealing their cellphones, saying they were doing their jobs.
Khayelitsha Community Policing Forum (CPF) chairperson Fransina Lukas said the criminals were becoming more and more brazen.
ANC community safety provincial spokesperson Mesuli Kama also said crime was getting out of hand in poor working-class communities.
Community Safety MEC Albert Fritz said Khayelitsha had been identified as one of the crime hot spots in terms of the Provincial Safety Plan.
He said the ongoing terror Khayelitsha residents lived with, seven years and counting after the Khayelitsha Commission’s report, was unacceptable and a constant reminder of the failure of national policing policy and strategy.
Anyone with information that could assist in the investigation is urged to contact Crime Stop at 0860010111 or via the MySAPS app.