WHEN an Isipingo mother heard multiple gunshots outside her Lotus Park home, she feared the worst – that her teenage son may have been a victim.
Reshma Chinna said her son Jeeral Govender, 19, had gone out when she heard over ten gunshots being fired around 8:30pm, on June 30.
“Minutes earlier, I had asked my daughter to call Jeeral and ask him to come back home as it was getting late. She went to put her phone on charge so that she could call him, when we heard the gunshots. I went numb and feared the worst for Jeeral,” said Chinna.
She said on his way home, Jeeral had stopped to speak to his friends who were sitting around a fire, across the road from their home.
“When I heard the gunshots I screamed for Jeeral. Something in me just knew that he had been hurt. I ran outside and found my baby lying on the side of the road. I recognised his clothing from a distance. He was slumped on his side near the fire. He was bleeding in multiple places on his body.
“I said ‘Jeeral, my baby, wake up son. Wake up boy.’ But he just moaned. I screamed as loud as I could for help, but nobody came out to assist. I just held him and kept screaming,” she said.
She said it had been alleged that a group of men in an unknown vehicle had drove by and opened fire on the group of friends.
“Another man, in his thirties, who was shot twice in his legs, dragged himself away from the scene and was hiding in fear of the shooters,” she said.
Chinna said a few minutes later, a friend of Jeeral’s who had heard the gunshots and screams drove down the road with his dad to see what had happened.
“They carried Jeeral and put him into their vehicle and took him to Isipingo Hospital,” she said.
Jeeral had sustained two gunshot wounds to his back, one to his leg and one to the side of his body.
About an hour after being in the emergency room, doctors told Chinna that her first born son had passed on.
“Nurses tried to call the police to notify them of the shooting, but they said they could not get through to the station. It has been over a week and police have still not visited the scene or come to me for a statement. We have been living in fear since this incident. My other two children are traumatised,” she said.
Chinna said not even the pain of losing her husband, who she shared a close bond with, compared to what she felt now.
“I lost my husband and I experienced that grief. But losing my child is something I cannot accept. It feels as though someone is continuously ripping out my insides. My shoulders are heavy. I can’t accept that my son is dead,” she added.
Chinna and her children moved to Durban from Johannesburg with her three children after her husband passed away in 2018.
She said she thought that the move would benefit her and her children and they would be surrounded by family and friends who would support them in their time of grief.
“Little did I know that I would lose my baby here. He turned 19 in February and was a responsible and respectful young man. He took his role as the man of the house with pride since my dad passed on last year. My dad was a father figure to him since my husband passed on,” Chinna said.
Jeeral was home-schooled and then worked at SA Breweries. He was a role model to his siblings, aged 14 and 6, and would make sure that he took his baby brother to school each morning.
He shared a great bond with his sister, Tayreesha, 14. She said her brother was everything to her.
Chinna’s sister, Rekha Chinna, said Jeeral was the apple of the family’s eye.
“He was the first grandchild so he was very spoiled. His cousins looked up to him and he was a good role model for them,” Rekha said.
Jeeral was laid to rest on Friday, July 5.