LIVING IN THE CROSSFIRE

September was a bloody month with 490 skietgevalle reported

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IT'S been a bloody September in Cape Town and for residents across the Cape Flats, it's not just a headline, it's a daily reality.

With nearly 500 gang-related shootings reported in the Western Cape in just one month, families have been forced to live, learn, and even celebrate under fire.

In Hanover Park last weekend, matriculants dressed for their big night as bullets ripped through the streets, while parents pray every day that their children make it home from school.

Hanover Park Community Policing Forum (CPF) media liaison Kashiefa Mohammed asked why the future generations have to duck and dive due to bullets that have riddled their society.

Mohammed said: “The community of Hanover Park is in so much fear.

“Our children are scared to play outside, our community go to sleep with the sound of gunshots and wake up with the sound of gunshots. Our children are dying, our youngsters can’t walk where they want because they are targeted by gangsters.”

Mohammed further appealed for more police visibility in the area — and not only when they call when a shooting occured.

A recent gun violence incident saw a Grade R teacher at Yellowwood Primary in Mitchells Plain calming her learners as bullets rang out outside the school; another reminder that even learning isn’t safe.

Former gang leader Shewaan “Tandjies” Jumat knows the streets too well and goes by the slogan “Raak rich in mind or get left behind”.

He started a gang at 14, and ran drug operations for nearly two decades. These days he spends his time trying to keep others from following the same path.