She was at the wrong place at the wrong time. This is what the family of an Ekurhuleni teenage girl said after Fezeka Ngwenya was killed by a stray bullet.
Fezeka, 18, died just after 4am on Saturday morning, a few hours after she arrived at Natalspruit Hospital with a bullet wound through her skull.
Her twin sister, Feziwe, went out to look for her when she did not return from the tuck-shop on Friday at about 10pm. The sisters lived in a shack at Tsietsi informal settlement neat Tokoza.
Feziwe found her sister lying in a pool of blood in the street.
She had been on her way home when the bullet struck. “She couldn’t talk and was breathing heavily. She was also bleeding profusely,” said a visibly emotional and grief-stricken Feziwe.
According to the twins’ aunt, Elizabeth Dladla, Fezeka was hit by a stray bullet.
“Our understanding is that there was a squabble between some people and one of them went to get a friend at a nearby house who came with a gun. He then came out screaming, asking who wanted to fight, while shooting randomly,” Dladla said.
“Fezeka was at the wrong place at the wrong time. She was caught by a bullet just around her nose and it exited her skull through her brain.”
The twins were Grade 11 pupils at Glenbrack High School in Brackendowns. Feziwe said although she had seen just how badly her sister had been injured she “still can’t believe she’s gone”.
“We were very close, went to school together and did many other things together. I was worried when she did not come back from the tuck-shop and went out to look for her; I didn’t expect to find her dead,” Feziwe said.
Fezeka’s aunt described her as a “jolly, hyperactive, sweet and lovely young girl” while Feziwe was more reserved. “Feziwe saw her lying there and drove with her sister to the hospital. It’s yet to sunk into her that she’s dead but I think it’s going to be very hard on her when it happens,” Dladla said.
The twin sisters’ mother, Petronella Ngwenya, sat on the bed sobbing softly as she looked at Fezeka’s picture.
“My sister and her children live here and they said crime was not a problem here but how did it happen that someone would just storm out of his house shooting wildly? We’re told the shooter was arrested on Saturday and has already appeared in court,” Dladla said.
The Star Africa