DURBAN - AN ETHEKWINI Municipality employee was shot multiple times shortly after leaving an ANC branch meeting in uMlazi on Saturday.
Thulani Shusha, a leader of one of the ANC branches in the uMlazi area, died in a hail of bullets near uMlazi’s Baker Road when four men opened fire on him and other ANC activists.
Provincial police spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Nqobile Gwala said two men died in the shooting.
“A man, 51, and another man, 35, sustained multiple gunshot wounds. Others managed to flee. Both were declared dead at the scene. The motive for the killing is yet to be established.”
The second person who was killed has yet to be identified but is believed to be an ANC member.
Shusha was also a SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) activist and employed in the eThekwini Municipality’s health unit. A relative of Shusha, who declined to be named for safety reasons, said Shusha had died after being shot more than 20 times.
“I received a call that there had been a shooting, some of the people he was with had been seen running. He was shot more than 20 times, there were many bullets, he died at the scene.”
The relative said Shusha and a group of about 80 people had just finished a ANC branch meeting and were standing close to where the meeting had taken place when a group of about four men just started firing.
The relative blamed the ANC turmoil for the murder. “I believe the killing is linked to his activism in the ANC. In the past year he said he was embroiled in a dispute with someone in parliament (provincial legislature), he never told us who that person is.
“We had thought that since he had not mentioned anything recently, the dispute was behind him. We are shocked and pained, his children are so small and they’ve been traumatised.”
Samwu leader in Durban Xolani Dube said: “We are still going to visit the family to get the details, but we’d like to pass our condolences to his family.”
Education MEC and ANC convener for the eThekwini Region, Kwazi Mshengu, said they were extremely worried about the continued killing of comrades. “The motive is unknown and it’s difficult to speculate. Hence we call on police to double their efforts in effecting arrest.”
He said the lack of arrests made things difficult for ANC and the family of victims. “We call on all those who may have information that can lead to the arrest to assist the police.”
In separate incidents on Saturday, police spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Nqobile Gwala said a woman, 35, was shot dead in Chatsworth. “Four people were travelling on Higginson Highway when gunmen in a vehicle opened fire at their vehicle. A woman was declared dead at the scene, the others were taken to hospital.”
Advanced life support paramedics spokesperson Garrith Jamieson said five other people were injured in the shooting and taken to hospital.
In a separate incident, Reaction Unit SA (Rusa) spokesperson Prem Balram confirmed that they responded to an alleged drive-by shooting incident in Verulam on Saturday, where the bodies of two men were recovered in a sugar cane field. A motorist told Rusa he had seen gunmen in a white BMW opening fire on a white Toyota Avanza with rifles. Rusa reaction officers and medics located the vehicle about 50m from the road and the men a short distance from the vehicle. Gwala said the men were believed to be in their twenties.
THE MERCURY