Durban - A fight between a brother and sister turned deadly last week when the sister allegedly stabbed her brother.
The incident in Phoenix has left the neighbours seething and demanding justice.
A downstairs neighbour, who asked not to be named, said she was watching television last Thursday when she heard what sounded like an argument between the brother, 24, and his sister, 19.
Then, she said, she heard the sister screaming “My brother! My brother!” She called emergency services.
Several other people also called for an ambulance.
The neighbour said that when medics carried the brother down three flights of stairs on a stretcher from the flat he shared with his sister, “He was covered in blood… The whole passage down the stairs was filled with his blood”.
When they reached the ground floor, she heard the young man screaming, “Help me! Help me!” as he struggled to breathe.
“I feel very sad to see a young life go like that,” she said.
The neighbour said she helped wash the blood away the next day.
Neighbours said the ambulance drove off but then stopped 20m away as medics tried to resuscitate their patient. However, their attempts proved futile and he died.
Neighbours claimed the incident was sparked by an argument over where he should sleep that night.
They said the victim’s bed was next to a broken window and was wet from the rain.
They said the young man wanted to go to his sister’s bed when the argument allegedly broke out, resulting in him being stabbed in the arm.
A neighbour and work colleague said the man had grown up with his grandfather.
When his grandfather passed away, he would ask the neighbour for food as he had no one to turn to.
His mother had died while he was young and his father had remarried and lived elsewhere.
The neighbour helped to take care of him and helped to get him a job as a general worker at an aluminium factory.
“I saw him about an hour before when we were at work and I was shocked when I heard that he had died,” the neighbour said.
Police spokesman, Major Thulani Zwane confirmed last night that “a suspect was arrested for murder after she allegedly stabbed her brother with a knife”.
She appeared in court on Monday. Zwane did not know the outcome of her court appearance, but the Daily News saw her arriving at the flat mid-afternoon with other relatives.
They declined to comment.
Daily News