Cape Town - Mitchells Plain residents and community leaders are up in arms after another teenage boy was shot dead.
Grade 10 learner Riedewaan Boltman, 16, was shot and killed in Rolbal Street, Beacon Valley on Sunday. His death came months after five teenagers were shot in a drive-by in the same area.
Two of the victims, aged 13 and 18 died, while three aged 14, 16 and 18, were wounded.
According to police, Boltman was shot at around 8.30pm by unknown suspects and an investigation was under way.
Mitchells Plain activists and community leaders said police acknowledgement of the incident did not mean urgency. Combined accounts from different leaders in the area indicate that residents are pleading with the City’s Safety and Security Directorate as well as the office of the MEC for Community Safety to institute an integrated gang intervention plan where residents can purposefully contribute ideas on how to make their areas safer.
CPF chairperson Norman Jantjes said while the forum was still trying to come to terms with the death of yet another innocent child in the community, it was now fully convinced that the only way to solve the issues plaguing the community was to have a plan which consists of input from residents in gang hot-spot areas.
“We need government to urgently institute an integrated gang intervention plan. We cannot keep losing innocent lives like this, and for that to happen the government needs to work with us.
“As the residents, we know what would work, we need for the City and MEC to sit down with us so we can come up with a sustainable plan that will work long term, because gangsterism and violence are not the only factors at play here.”
Cape Coloured Congress leader Fadiel Adams condemned the violent incident, saying that there seemed to be an unspoken genocide of young coloured youth on the Cape Flats.
“We have reached out to the premier’s office, and the MEC for Community Safety and asked them to post a reward for Boltman’s killers, to root out these killers and make an example of them.
“We are pleading with the government to bring about the socio-economic change that will put an end to this type of evil. Our hearts go out to the Boltman family during this difficult time.”