“At first we thought it was a thunderstorm, but I realised it was gunshots, and when I looked out the window I could still see the gunpowder smoke.”
That is how Kwenzekile Ngcobo remembers the shooting in Ndwedwe Mission village, just outside Durban, where five people were shot dead on November 5.
Ngcobo was the first person at the scene where gunmen opened fire on a group of friends, including her brother Langelihle, while they sat on the veranda of a tuck shop.
The four others who died in the shooting were Lungelo Ngcobo, Nkosikhona Ngcobo, Mthobisi Gumede and Jerry Mthethwa.
Ngcobo said they were disappointed by reports that the men were drinking alcohol at the time of the shooting.
“We are hurt by what happened, but what hurt me the most was media reports that they [victims] were sitting in the tuck shop drinking alcohol. They were drinking a 2-litre Cooee cold drink,” she said.
She said Langelihle worked as a waste collector for the government’s community work programme (CWP) and did piecemeal jobs. She described him as a “people’s person” who would hang around with people of different ages.
He had been indoors for days with a bout of flu but went out on that day to buy an online betting voucher from the tuck shop for the MTN8 Final between Orlando Pirates and AmaZulu.
She said she saw him earlier when he came to borrow something, then went to the tuck shop, a “chill spot” for the friends.
Ngcobo said at the time of the shooting at about 1pm, she heard loud sounds.
“There is only one house between my home and the tuck shop, so all I could see was the smoke, but we all knew then that something was happening. My older sister started screaming, but I told her not to because those people might come here next if they heard her,” she said.
Ngcobo then went to check on Langa in his room, an outside bedroom, hoping she would find him still sleeping. She realised her brother might be one of the people at the tuck shop when she didn’t find him in his bedroom.
“You could see he was planning to come back to sleep because he hadn’t even made his bed. So since he was not working that day and it was raining, he couldn’t be herding cows, I just knew then that he was in the tuck shop.”
She rushed there, and though she could not see the make or details, Ngcobo said she had seen a vehicle leaving the tuck shop.
“All I could see was that it was one of those white double cabs,” she said.
“When I got there, there was a pool of blood everywhere. Only Lungelo Ngcobo was showing any sign of life, so I started moving around calling out for help. I met a guy from another Ngcobo family and told him what had happened and that one person was still alive.
“People soon came and the police responded quickly afterwards.”
At Sunday’s memorial service for four of the five victims at the Ndwedwe Mission sports ground, Dumi Gumede, Mthobisi’s aunt, thanked the “overwhelming support” of the community, who came out in their numbers despite the rain.
“It’s still difficult for the families and the whole community, we’re all scared and shocked because this is the first time we have had an incident like this. Because we’re the neighbour of the spaza shop where this happened, we’re still scared when we look at it. It’s like something will happen again,” she said.
Slindile Gcabashe, a social worker from the Ndwedwe Police service’s gender-based violence and femicide, urged residents to go for counselling.
“Things like this will affect you psychologically and spiritually if you keep it inside. We are here to provide psychosocial support and counselling,” she said.
“There will be a huge bang sound and people will be triggered. Children will play with wood or whatever and pretend it’s a gun — you will all need to heal from this hurt.”
Gcabashe said during their visit to the families last week they found out that an elderly Ngcobo family member could no longer eat after the incident, and a child who saw the bodies couldn’t sleep on the same night.
She said while most people did not believe in counselling, she urged residents to give it a chance.
“There is a childline service at the police station to help children deal with this. Please don’t shout at children when they talk about this, don’t say it’s adults' stuff. Listen to them, let them express their pain."
Ndwedwe Mayor Simon Mfeka told TimesLIVE a sixth victim is in critical condition.
Addressing the community during the service, he said crime levels in the country are beyond anything the government or the police alone can handle and society must work with police now more than ever.
“We’re now living in a society where people just do not care as long as they’re not directly affected. People will not report a crime because they are scared the perpetrators will come for them next, but we have mpimpa hotlines now which don’t require you to identify yourself,” he said.
KZN police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi has deployed a special investigation task team to probe the shooting.
TimesLIVE
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