As a Durban woman was discharged from hospital on Wednesday, members of her family spoke of their fears of being ”finished off” in a grudge war between two former friends. The feud has claimed several lives in the past four years.
On Tuesday, Leanne Armugam (30) and her cousin Donovan Pillay (26) were shot in Durban’s Hillary suburb.
Pillay, who sustained five gunshot wounds, was still fighting for his life in Durban’s Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital late on Wednesday afternoon, with provincial emergency medical rescue service officials reporting that he was in a critical but stable condition.
The attack, which left their white BMW riddled with at least 26 bullet holes, took place as Pillay was driving Armugam to work. According to police, the two were boxed in by two cars on Fourth Street as they tried to turn into the busy Stella Road.
Police found almost 50 shell casings at the scene from R5 assault rifles and a 9mm hand gun.
It was the second time in nearly three years that Leanne, the wife of taxi boss Duncan Armugam, was wounded in a drive-by shooting.
In a 2005 attack, she was grazed above the eye by a bullet, but her five-year-old son Dredin Lee was not so lucky. He was killed, as was Deon Govender (38) — who had been at the Armugams’ former Chatsworth house in a bid to sell amplifiers to Duncan.
On Wednesday, Duncan’s younger brother, Gerald Armugam, said: ”What happens to Donovan now is up to God.” He said the family fears that the person responsible for the shooting will return to ”finish off what’s left of the family”.
”Duncan feels like his entire family is being wiped out,” he said. ”We suspect the man responsible for killing Dredin is the same man that shot Leanne yesterday [Tuesday].”
Gerald said that a week before Dredin’s death in 2005, Duncan had had an altercation with a man whose name he would not reveal. ”And prior to Leanne being shot this week, Duncan had an altercation with the same man,” he said, adding that police had been informed about the incident.
Asked what the altercation was about, he said: ”It was a feud between Duncan and this man over nothing. Duncan went into the taxi business alone with his brother and these guys were left out of the business. They used to be friends before that.
”There was a personal grudge and it escalated over the years. We just want this war to stop because these shootings are senseless.”
Gerald described his sister-in-law Leanne as a loving person who did not deserve what happened to her.
”I don’t know why she always gets caught in the crossfire,” he said. ”After they lost Dredin, the pain never went away. Leanne did not have any more children and they only left Chatsworth to start a new life, but this gang followed them here.”
The family doubts she will have more children as they are too scared of losing another child. Gerald said the family fear that they will be killed ”one by one, including myself”, and they are thinking of leaving Durban, the city of their birth.
Another relative, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: ”The man who was arrested for Dredin’s murder in 2005 was later released. We don’t want the same thing to happen again. This murderer had many contacts in the police force and that is why he keeps on getting away with it.”
Gerald said that Leanne was ”too stressed” to speak to the media.
”She said that she saw two black guys in one car and another guy [in the second car]. She saw the two guys pointing firearms at them [Leanne and Pillay]. That’s all she saw. She opened the door and ran out to get help. She said they kept firing as she ran away.”
He said his message to the culprit is: ”We want everything to stop, even though there seems to be no end to it. We don’t want to fight. We just want to move on with our lives.” — Sapa