Mdantsane; Springs, | Monday
Two victims of a jilted lover’s shooting rampage in South Africa, where he killed 10 people before turning the gun on himself, were fighting for their lives on Monday, a hospital official said.
Cecilia Makiwane Hospital representative Matron Lulama Geleba said Lindiwe Ntoni (45) and Mawethu Mqala (28) were still in a serious condition in the intensive care unit after being shot late on Saturday in Mdantsane, near East London.
Geleba said five other victims wounded by 28-year-old Bulelani Vukwana were in a stable condition in the hospital’s general surgical ward.
Police Inspector Stephen Marais said Vukwana apparently had shot his girlfriend at close range in the head with a 9 mm pistol after an argument with her.
The off-duty East London security guard then ran amok and went to her parents’ house, where he killed both of them and a third person.
Vukwana then hijacked a passing car and drove through Mdantsane, randomly firing on passers-by before he got out of his vehicle and began shooting again outside a bar, hitting six people, according to police.
Police said Vukwana killed himself after being pursued on foot and surrounded by police.
Marais said Vukwana’s killing spree was apparently triggered by a failed relationship with his girlfriend.
Vukwane’s shattered father, Stotshulo Vukwane (48) told East London’s Daily Dispatch newspaper he could not believe what his son had done.
”We last saw him on February 1 and he appeared to be happy and content and never mentioned he was having problems with his girlfriend.
”When he left home he said he would see the family at month-end. I am shocked, this was not my son as we knew him,” his father said.
A single event would not change a normal person into a crazed killer, crime expert Mark Welman, of the MTN Crime Prevention Centre at Rhodes University, told the South African news agency Sapa.
”It’s normally a series of stressed events over several months and then one final event triggers the homicidal rage,” Welman said.
In another horrific incident, a 27-year-old man shot his three-year-old daughter before committing suicide just after 9am on Monday morning in Springs, East Rand police said.
Superintendent Andy Pieke said police received a phone call about a hostage situation at a house in Stark Street, Selection Park, Springs, around 8.40am.
Traffic officials, who were the first on the scene, found the 27-year-old wife outside the house and told her to take cover because her husband was on the veranda, brandishing a firearm and threatening to shoot anybody within range.
The traffic officer tried to calm the man down, but after a while he went back into the house and a single shot was heard.
When police arrived the man came out of the house and said he had shot his daughter, after which he went back into the house and more shots were heard.
When the police forced the back door to the house open, they found the man and the little girl in a bedroom with gunshot wounds to their heads.
Paramedics tried in vain to resuscitate the two, but the little girl died at the scene. Her father was rushed to a local hospital where he died.
Pieke said police found a letter written on the back of an envelope, and seized a 9mm pistol.
The shooting could have been caused by an argument earlier in the morning between the man and his wife.
Pieke said there were signs of a violent struggle in the house.
”The television set appeared to have been hit with a crowbar.”
The wife and her eldest child, a nine-year-old daughter, were safe, he said.
The names of the father and toddler would be released later.
More than half of all killings in South Africa — there were 21 700 in 2000 alone — are committed using firearms, according to official statistics. -Sapa