President Cyril Ramaphosa has conveyed his condolences to the families of 18 people who lost their lives in a weekend mass shooting incident at Ngobozana village in Lusikisiki, Eastern Cape.
Ramaphosa also assured the families of the deceased that the SAPS had mobilised maximum resources to ensure that the perpetrators were brought to book.
Ramaphosa said: “I feel deeply for all the families and members of the broader community affected by this attack and on behalf of all of us as South Africans, I offer you our deepest sympathies.
“While we are united in our grief, we are also united in our outrage and condemnation of this excessive criminal assault which will not go unpunished.”
A team of specialist detectives and forensic science experts have been deployed to the crime scene to assist with the investigation. In addition, Police Minister Senzo Mchunu and the national leadership of the SAPS, are due to visit the families and engage with residents on the tragedy.
Excluding the latest massacre, 38 people have been killed under similar circumstances during a period of two years, while 25 suspects remain in custody.
Ramaphosa said the SAPS had proven its effectiveness in dealing with random and organised crime, and he was confident the Lusikisiki case would be added to the successes recorded recently by the police.
“Community members should therefore feel free to provide investigators with information that can help police apprehend the attackers and prepare a watertight case for our courts to process. We will not allow criminals to prevail,” he said.
Visiting one of the homes on Monday morning, Newzroom Afrika’s media team showed a graphic trail of blood left after the massacre. Village headman, Sibongiseni Nalulwana, urged the community to assist in the investigation.
“All that remains in this home are the chickens you see around and blood; as you can see the gate is closed. The family is finished. I am urging community members to come forward with information to the police. At this stage, we don’t know who we are searching for,” said Nalulwana.
The 18th victim died in hospital on Sunday, Eastern Cape SAPS spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Siphokazi Mawisa, said no arrests had been made yet. It was suggested that police might have a lead but the details were not shared.
Security expert, Calvin Rafadi, a forensic investigator at Bizz Tracers, said the mass killing highlighted gaps in our law enforcement.
“Once again this highlights crime intelligence was missing. Now we are dealing with the aftermath, we are dealing with police who are reactionary on this matter, we wish to highlight that communities must come forward with information because they know.”
Rafadi said massacres were often linked to revenge killings, saying: “Criminals don’t just shoot randomly at any house, they profile their victims, they know who they are going to take out for revenge.”
He said police investigators should look at the “cellphone dump option, collecting all the numbers that were in that area or that house.”
Rafadi added that police hardly used such resources because the pressure often led them to arrest the wrong people and releasing them at a later stage because, “they can’t place them at the scene of crime.”
“We don’t want communities to lose hope when people are arrested and let out; we want the police to arrest the right people hence we are calling for cellphone dumps to be used.”
The Star