SEVEN-YEAR-OLD Alizwa Makhanda arrived in Cape Town a week ago with dreams of taking her family out of poverty, but on Wednesday night she was struck by a stray bullet near her new home in Site C, Khayelitsha.
Alizwa was playing at a friend’s home metres from hers when she was shot dead, allegedly by a foreign-national shopkeeper during a suspected robbery.
Two bystanders, aged 36, were wounded during the incident, and were being treated for their injuries.
Police spokesperson Andre Traut said it was alleged that a Somali shopkeeper shot at the men who attempted to rob his business when the three people, including Alizwa, were hit in the crossfire.
The shop has since been closed. Traut said the shopkeeper fled the scene, and was being hunted by police. Alizwa had arrived in Cape Town from the Eastern Cape a week ago.
She was last seen by her aunt Sisanda Raza, 32, when she had taken her school books to be covered by her uncle, who lived near her grandmother.
When Raza was informed of the shooting and that a child had been hit, she thought Alizwa was safe. It was after she wanted to visit the scene and was prevented by her sister that she found out it was Alizwa.
She said Alizwa’s friends had seen a man being chased by the shopkeeper, who was allegedly firing shots randomly.
She said Alizwa was putting up a piece of a magazine cut-off on their playing wall when the bullet hit her. “We were told that a child had been shot, but we did not know whose child was. My sister was the one who attended the scene and saw her.
“A lot of people at the scene were very emotional. The way her body was, you could tell she never expected what happened. She was struck with a bullet at the back of her head.
“There was no place to escape. Even the cut-off she was trying to put on the wall was left half hanging,” said Raza. She said Alizwa was enjoying school after she was taken away from her Eastern Cape mother who had an alcohol problem.
“When my brother died, I decided to take Alizwa as one of my children because of the difficult circumstances she was living under.
“I had asked her mother to give me the child so she could go to school here. It’s so painful, what happened to her, and I regret bringing her here.”