Cape Town - The fatal stabbing of a 23-year-old man from Site C, allegedly by three teenage girls over a broken bottle of liquor, has left residents shocked and a family still seeking answers.
Zolani Toyana was drinking with three of the five girls he was acquainted with when a bottle of gin broke in his hands when it slipped, allegedly angering the girls who then attacked and killed him.
The girls allegedly punched, kicked and pelted him with stones. They stabbed him in the stomach and the neck, slitting through his jugular vein, which killed him.
After the incident and lack of police action, an impromptu march erupted on Tuesday when the residents and Toyana’s friends went to the Lingelethu police station in Khayelitsha to demand the arrests of the alleged killers.
Family member Naledi Nofemele said: “Zolani had for a while been drinking with the girls and they know each other. When they started drinking on Saturday, we were told there were five of them, and that two left before the incident. However, the friends allege that they were also part of this. They assaulted him with a bottle in the head and when it broke stabbed him in the neck and in the stomach after he broke a bottle of gin,” she said.
Nofemele said the incident was painful and brought past trauma in which Zolani’s elder brother died, in the same manner, four years ago.
“It is really concerning that this is happening to this family. In 2019 his older brother was also stabbed, by eight men, some of them are neighbours and are still roaming the streets, while some left the province to the Eastern Cape,” she said.
Nofemele said the girls should have instead requested that they be reimbursed for the broken alcohol instead of taking Zolani’s life.
“They should have gone to the family and reported that Zolani had broken their alcohol and asked that they be given their money. Killing him is not justified, whether it was a mistake or not, and can never be forgiven and we want them to be arrested.
“It can’t be that three days after the incident, no one has been arrested. Zolani must get the justice he deserves and we want the case to be prioritised,” she said.
Police spokesperson Wesley Twigg said Khayelitsha police registered a murder case after the death of a 23-year-old man on Sunday at about 5.15am on the corner of Maphongana and Eagle streets, Site C, Khayelitsha.
He said police attended the scene, where they found the victim with stab wounds. He was declared dead by medical personnel.
Twigg said the suspects were yet to be arrested.