Tiny kite-flyer pays high price
Another innocent child will be buried from Nelson Mandela Bay’s ganglands today. Here, his mother, teachers and even a gang members talk out about the hopelessness of a situation that gets worse instead of better
WHEN five-year-old gang victim Lucin Pieterse is laid to rest today in Port Elizabeth he will be wearing a new crisp white shirt, black pants and bow tie especially bought for him by his devastated young mother, Lucelle.
She had planned to buy him the new clothes for school.
“I never wanted to be the one to bury him – he was meant to bury me. I did everything I could for him with the little money that I have. I was planning to buy him new clothing to wear to school. I wanted to give him a good life, a better life but now he is gone,” she said this week.
Neighbours and community members rallied around the Pieterse family and assisted them by making food and planning the funeral that will start with a service at the Pieterse home in Ibex Street, Helenvale, before proceeding to the Church of Christ in Barcelona.
Then the tiny white coffin will be lowered into a grave at the Bethelsdorp Graveyard between 11am and noon.
Lucin, previously reported as being aged four, was killed in a gang-related shooting last Sunday afternoon while playing with a home-made kite only a few metres from his house. It is still not clear for whom the bullets were meant.
Jade Fredericks, 11, who had been riding a bicycle down the street was also shot and has since been discharged from hospital.
While Lucin was the third child killed in gang-related incidents in Ibex Street in the past five years, 11 people have been killed in gang-related incidents in Nelson Mandela Bay in the past two weeks.
“I was at work on Sunday when it happened. Lucin was home with my aunt when he went outside to play kite. He loved flying his kite,” said Lucelle. She heard that a child had been shot when on her way home from Checkers in Newton Park, where she works as a deli assistant.
“I soon realised they were talking about Lucin. When I got to the street he was still alive and I went with to the hospital. The doctors were all around him and even though he was shot in the head, I could see that he was fighting to stay alive.”
The little boy hardly murmured while being rushed to hospital but hung on tightly to his kite.
Lucelle, 24, who also has a one-year-old daughter, Ashlayn, is clearly still in shock. “I never thought that this could happen to a child of mine.
“No one knows why they had to shoot when they could see that children were playing in the street. People heard about 14 shots being fired that day and Lucin went down after the first shot.”
Lucelle said she was angry because gangsters did not care who they killed and who was in the way.
“They have absolutely no remorse. The lives of small children mean nothing to them. Our children play in the street because we do not have any parks for them – there are no fields nearby. But now how can they even go outside when these shootings are happening during the day?”
“I am heartbroken because of the way my child died and I am heartbroken that my daughter will never know her brother.”
The mother said police needed to do more to arrest the gangsters responsible and parents who knew their children were involved needed to turn them in.
On Thursday, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa visited the family. He said there were plans to increase police presence in the area.
Ward 13 councillor Nico du Plessis said “all hell broke loose” in the area three months ago and innocent children were now paying the price in the various gang lords’ fight to control turf.
“The community feels that if they report incidents or shootings they will be targeted. People here are very scared of retaliation so they keep quiet instead. Others are scared to be summoned as witnesses because there have been occasions where witnesses are killed.”
Du Plessis said those doing the shooting