OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Monday 9.30am
POLICE and army troops have been redeployed to the volatile Cape Flats after a weekend of gang-related fighting that left 19 people injured and two dead.
On Monday morning three-year-old Chantien Veldsman, the daughter of slain Cape Flats gang leader Glen Kahn, is in a critical condition in hospital after a gunman shot her in the head in Mitchell’s Plain on Saturday.
Operation Good Hope spokesman Captain Neville Malila said a white Toyota van, with two men sitting in it, pulled up outside 105 Buke Street, Mitchells Plain and shot dead Jerome Bush (35) who was sitting outside his house drinking a beer with friends.
The passenger, who was wearing a scarf over his face, got out of the car, walked up to Veldsman who was playing in the street outside her house, and shot her with a 9mm pistol.
A hospital statement on Monday morning said Veldsman has severe brain damage and chances that she will survive are unlikely. In a separate incident in Hanover Park on Saturday, Americans gang member Kassim Daniels (38) was killed and 18 other people were injured in a shooting at a braai. A large number of Americans gang members were present at the braai when gunmen in an Uno and a Ford Sierra drove the group and opened fire with 9mm pistols and R5 rifles.
Police believe the shooting could have been a revenge attack carried out by People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) members or the Dixie Boys gang. The burnt shell of the white Fiat Uno used in the shooting was found early on Sunday morning.
Last weekend Dixie Boys gang leader Junaid “Jango” Joseph was shot dead in a drive-by shooting and Mogammat Heuvel (17) the son of Pagad G-Force member Abdul Heuvel, died in the Groote Schuur Hospital on Wednesday. He was shot twice in the head and twice in the body while playing soccer in Tafelsig last Sunday.