Cape Town - A heart-broken Delft man has described how his teenage son died in his arms moments after he said “I love you” to his father.
Moments earlier four bullets fired from a gang hit man’s pistol ripped through 16-year-old Edwin Jarrod Abrahams’s body even though the boy was not among those the killer and his cohorts were seeking.
John Abrahams, the father of three from Cubango Street, Delft South, said he was at home on Monday, shortly after midday, because he worked night shifts for a courier company.
His son Edwin was at home with him.
“Edwin went out about 20 minutes earlier, and at about 1pm I heard shots. I ran out into the street and was told he was around the corner, that he had been shot,” he told the Cape Argus.
Not far from their home, he found his son lying in the street.
He had been shot four times - twice in the chest, in the back and in one foot.
“He was still alive.
“He told me he loved me. That was all,” the grief-stricken father said, sobbing.
He was subsequently told by members of the community that four gunmen had come to the area looking for two men, and that his son had possibly gone to warn the pair.
“And they shot my son first, instead,” John Abrahams said.
“My son wasn’t a gangster. He had his ups and downs, but he wasn’t a gangster.”
The gunmen eventually also found their intended targets. The two men were also shot, in their abdomens, but both survived and were taken to hospital.
Of his wife, Edwin’s mother, Abrahams said: “I’m looking after her. She already has heart problems. I have to be there for her now.”
His two remaining children, a son aged 11 and a daughter aged 19, were also grieving the loss of their brother.
Later on Tuesday, Abrahams faced the task of having to formally identify his son’s body at a morgue.
Police spokesman Andre Traut said Edwin had been shot dead on Monday at 1.15pm in Church Street in Delft.
Two men were wounded and admitted to hospital and a 16-year-old suspect was arrested on charges of murder and attempted murder.
“The circumstances are being investigated,” Traut said.
Cape Argus