Durban - An 87-year-old man who shot a neighbour’s child, allegedly mistaking him for a monkey, wanted to commit suicide afterwards.
Bongumusa Duma, 12, died after being shot in the head in the rural area of KwaMahlathini on the South Coast on Sunday morning after he climbed a tree.
His great-grandmother Fuwelaphi Duma told The Mercury on Tuesday that her neighbour, Phelamandla Myeza, had come to report the shooting in tears.
“He said ‘I’ve killed Zandile’s child’. He was crying and held the gun to his own head.”
She said her adult grandson, Mandla, had to wrestle the gun out of the Myeza’s hands.
“I didn’t understand what he was telling me, he killed my grandchild’s (Zandile) child, how, why?”
She said she followed him to a fruit and vegetable patch owned by another neighbour, and found the boy’s body where it had fallen from the tree.
“I felt weak when I saw him, I was broken,” she said.
She said her granddaughter Zandile, Bongumusa’s mother, lived in Durban and was hospitalised after the news.
Neighbours, who did not want to be named, said one of the community had sent Bongumusa and another boy to the fruit and vegetable patch to chase away monkeys.
They said Myeza had also noticed the monkeys and was making his way down from his home nearby to shoot at them.
“He used to be a security guard in the sugar cane plantation, so he has always been the one we call to shoot monkeys and other pests in our
gardens,” said a neighbour.
“It was only when we heard the screams of the boy he (Bongumusa) was playing with that we went to see what had happened. With his death and Baba’s (Myeza's) arrest, as a community we feel we’ve been dealt a double blow. It was an unfortunate accident and we don’t blame him for it.”
Steve Smit, co-founder of Monkey Helpline, said monkeys were protected in terms of conservation legislation - although not specifically mentioned, as mammals they were included.
He said in his experience, there was a lot more tolerance for animals like monkeys in rural communities. “People are content to live with monkeys because they understand why they are there," he said.
"Anyone wanting to take action against monkeys is required to prove they are causing damage, and prove they have looked into but failed to find other means to get rid of them. Only then will a permit be issued to shoot them.”
Myeza appeared briefly in the Umzinto Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday. He will appear again on Wednesday.