Cape Town - A Leonsdale toddler will be undergoing a second surgery on Tuesday after she was hit by a gang bullet which ruptured her jaw and ripped through her tongue.
Jaylin Alexander, 2, was struck in the face by a stray bullet while standing in the yard of her 12th Avenue home during a drive-by shooting.
Jaylin’s aunty, Evlyn Alexander, says she visited the little girl and her mother, Carmen, at Red Cross Hospital on Tuesday where she was told the child would be going for a second surgery.
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“Jaylin opened her eyes, but her whole mouth is open and we can see a part of her tongue is gone. Her mother is broken and cried the whole day,” she says.
“Jaylin is still in ICU and the doctors are going to try and [fix] her mouth tomorrow. She is in a lot of pain and you can see she is upset because there are tears, but she can’t mos make any sound with her mouth.”
Witnesses say in the shooting on Thursday afternoon, they saw a taxi filled with gunmen drive by and heard gunshots and later discovered that Jaylin and her uncle, Shafiek Kolbie, 32, had been hit.
Kolbie died after being shot in the chest.
A resident claims members of the G-Unit gang are responsible for the shooting which intended to kill members of the Bad Boys gang in 12th Avenue.
No arrests have been made yet.