We have just finished killing him - Hammanskraal residents answer victim's phone
Pretoria – When the brother of one of the two men killed in Hammanskraal on Monday called his sibling’s phone, his murderers answered.
The first call went to voicemail. “When I made the second call I knew something was not right. The third call was answered by one of the community members, who said they had caught him. He told me they had just finished killing him,” said Doctor Nelushi.
“He added that I should not talk nonsense, we are done with him. I started crying, I was in pain because my brother was dead.”
Doctor’s brother Lucky and a second man, Elias Tshabalala, were killed when residents of the Suurman, Kanana and Sekampaneng informal settlements turned on employees of the Red Ants security company. They had come to demolish shacks and evict them.
Assignment
The three were part of a team put together by a Pretoria-based security and construction company. Doctor said his brother told him about the job and that they should be at an intersection between Soshanguve and Makapanstad in the early hours of the morning. He said Lucky told him the assignment would be over four days and they would get R150 each per day.
“We were expecting 500 people to come on the day and there were six buses that came to pick us up.”
They were given reflector jackets, gloves, and crowbars.
During a briefing session with their employer, they were not told where they would be going, but that there would be protection.
“They told us that we must not worry about where we are going, or about safety, as we would have back-up from police and metro police as well as a chopper. They said it was enough and we should not worry. They said we would just be demolishing the shacks as well as loading the materials into the trucks,” he said.
Doctor said when they arrived in Hammanskraal around 07:00 there was no helicopter or security. There was only one SAPS car and one metro police car. Shortly afterwards they saw members of the Red Ants, who would be helping with the security.
They were instructed to split into groups of five and demolish and load the shacks onto trucks. He heard a shot fired after a Red Ants worker tried to disperse residents.
'My brother was caught'
“I could see people starting to run towards us. Everybody was trying to save their lives. From there we ran to our transports,” he said.
“From a distance I could hear and see a huge explosion and when I turned back, I saw that one bus was set alight. We ran to the other buses until we heard that seven of our guys have been injured and they are busy killing two of them,” Doctor said.
When he did not see his brother, he called him. It went directly to voicemail. He called again and then again before someone else answered.
“I was traumatised when I heard my brother was caught by the community.”
Doctor said they were given no training.
“I’m a security guard by profession and I have no training in dealing with violence like that. What they did was a huge risk to innocent people. They should have employed people with experience in that department,” he said.
Lucky would be buried in Venda next weekend.
Attempts to get comment from the company were unsuccessful. A woman answered the phone but hung up when a News24 reporter introduced himself.
News24
Link:
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/N...kraal-residents-answer-victims-phone-20160527