Farmworker lucky to be alive after hijacking
Assailants speed off with bakkie after Kariega man shot and left for dead at shop
A quick stop to buy a cooldrink after work turned into a nightmare for a Kariega farmworker who was shot and dumped on the side of the road during a hijacking on Sunday night.
Shaun Manga, 36, received surgery yesterday to remove the bullet that was still lodged in his rib cage after he was shot while sitting in the driver’s seat of his bakkie outside a spaza shop in KwaNobuhle.
And while Manga is recovering in hospital, KwaNobuhle residents and bystanders said the incident happened so quickly it had left them stunned and fearing for their lives.
“To be honest, I’m still not sure what exactly happened and I saw the whole ordeal play out,” Jacob Lungisa, 42, said.
“By the time I realised what was going on, the shooters were gone and there was a bleeding man lying in the dirt in front of me.
“There was no warning. They walked up to him, shot him and just left him there to die.”
Manga works at a farm on the outskirts of Kariega, but lives on another farm across the road from KwaNobuhle.
His employer, Ericus Meyer, said he received a phone call at about 7.30pm, to inform him that Manga had been shot.
“Initially, I did not answer the phone because it was a number I did not recognise.
“But when the phone rang a second time I thought it must be urgent.
“The person on the other end told me Shaun had been shot and needed help urgently,” Meyer said.
Manga had gone into the Umhlobo Wenene spaza shop to buy a cooldrink and some groceries shortly after 7pm.
As he came out of the shop and got into the bakkie, belonging to Meyer, two men approached him and he was shot without warning.
“Shaun told me there was no warning,” Meyer said.
“He had just climbed into the driver’s seat of the bakkie when he saw one man approach him from the front, and the next moment a second man appeared from behind and shot him in his side, at the back of his ribs.
“They pulled him out of the bakkie, dumped him on the ground and sped off with the bakkie.”
Meyer, being unfamiliar with the area, drove to a house where another of his employees lives and picked him up to give directions to the scene of the hijacking.
They found Manga lying in the dirt outside the spaza shop, with a blanket draped over him.
They notified emergency services, loaded Manga into Meyer’s vehicle and took him to the closest main route where they met up with an ambulance. Manga was then transported to the Uitenhage Provincial Hospital.
There, he was stabilised before being transferred to Livingstone Hospital in Gqeberha, where he underwent surgery.
Manga is said to be in a stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery, but will remain in hospital for observation. Lungisa said there was no warning before the hijacking and an area he deemed to be quite safe, now scared him.
“We’ve never really had violence like this in the area around that shop.
“But it was like these guys came out of nowhere. I saw them come closer, and they said nothing.
“They just shot him and took his stuff. Who does something like that?”
The shop owner declined to comment.
Police spokesperson Captain Gerda Swart said a case of attempted murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances was under investigation. No arrests had been made.