A team of seasoned detectives has initiated a manhunt in yet another devastating mass shooting in the OR Tambo District, Eastern Cape, after five family members were killed at the weekend.
Two men stormed into a homestead in Ncinjana village, Bityi, near Mthatha, at about 8.30pm on Friday, killing a couple and three children while two others were wounded.
Among the dead was a matric learner. Following this latest incident, a total of 24 people have been killed in mass shootings in the district recently.
Eighteen people were murdered in two homesteads in Lusikisiki last month and six patrollers were killed in Qumbu earlier this month.
Provincial police spokesperson Siphokazi Mawisa said police were investigating five counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder in the Bityi matter.
“Information on hand indicates that the family was asleep in two different houses in a yard. The parents were sleeping in a rondavel when two unknown males entered and fatally shot them. They flounced out of the rondavel and started firing shots at the people who were sleeping in another house and fatally shot three, and left two injured. The other two children who survived the attack managed to run away and inform the neighbours, who then alerted the police.
“Two males and three females died while the two injured children were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment,” said Mawisa.
Provincial police commissioner Nomthetheleli Mene said all resources have been mobilised to find the perpetrators. A family member who spoke during Premier Oscar Mabuyane’s visit to the grieving relatives said he received the shocking news just before 9pm.
“I rushed to the scene and there were already a number of people outside. I pushed the door to the first house and found my brother’s wife’s body on the floor and his body was on the bed with bullet wounds to the head.
“He was facing the wall and I went to the other house to check if anyone was still alive. In the children’s room I found three dead also on the bed and among the children who survived one was shot in the arm. They tell me the suspects were arguing among themselves that they must finish them off and kill everyone, but then a decision was taken to leave the remaining people alive,” he said.
Mabuyane said the arrests and progress that has been made in Qumbu and Lusikisiki gave them hope that in the latest incident there will also be a breakthrough.
“I have spoken to the police about a 72-hour activation response. ... It is clear that we are really at war with senseless criminals,” he said.
Portfolio committee on police chairperson Ian Cameron noted what he described as a worrying increase in mass murders in South Africa.
“We are calling on SAPS to invigorate collaboration with traditional leaders and community policing forums to push back the frontiers of crime in rural communities, particularly in the villages where it has reached unimaginable proportions,” said Cameron.
Anyone with information on the incident can anonymously contact Crime Stop at 0860 010111, or SMS Crime Line at 32211.
Cape Times