We will kill your child!
Henriëtte Geldenhuys Published:Jul 15, 2007
Gunmen are targeting Joburg mothers at their most vulnerable — when they are accompanied by their children.
At one school alone, prestigious Pridwin Preparatory in Melrose , at least five women with children have been held up at gunpoint in recent months and robbed.
Among the incidents:
In June, a mother was robbed of her jewellery and wristwatch at the school’s gates. Other parents and staff watched the attack in horror on closed-circuit television cameras inside the school’s reception area, afraid to intervene.
On May 6, a five-year-old boy , his mother, brother and grandfather were held up at gunpoint and robbed at their Melrose home.
Two robbers surprised them in their garage and robbed the mother of a diamond engagement ring, a tanzanite ring, diamond earings, a cellphone and a wallet with R600.
On June 4, Pridwin parent Nicky Hunter and her son Ross, 5, were held up at gunpoint at their home in Parkwood, near Zoo Lake .
“My son got a fright and started crying, but one of the robbers put his hand over his mouth and said: ‘If he doesn’t keep quiet, we will kill him.’ ”
The gangsters forced the mother and son and an employee to the floor and “kept saying, about 10 times: ‘Kiss the carpet.’ ”
The robbers stole three laptops, a camera, videos, DVDs, a watch and the boy’s PlayStation, bought a day earlier, before fleeing in the family’s BMWX5.
For days after the robbery , Ross’s Australian parents agonised about their son’s future in South Africa. Finally they decided he would be better off in their home country.
“We needed to take him away from the fear that will not go away if he stayed in this country,” said Ross’s father, Fred Hunter.
The family had planned to stay in South Africa for the next seven years, but instead mother and son flew to Australia on Wednesday.
Hunter — who brought the St Petersburg Ballet and the Great Moscow Circus to South Africa — could soon follow them.
“If this is how people are treated, why bother? My son should be thinking about riding bikes, playing with friends, not about armed robbers.”
Pridwin principal Selwyn Marx said robbers targeted mothers and focused more on their jewellery than on their vehicles. The school has hired security guards and erected boom gates at the entrance.
Said one mother, who asked not to be named: “Everyone who lives in Melrose with boys at that school has been attacked. The parents and the kids are so freaked out. There’s not one parent I know who’s not working on a plan B to leave the country.”
In attacks at other schools:
A mother was hijacked at a crèche in Morningside.
In June, a mother was hijacked outside the gates of the Fairway Primary School in Melrose.
Dr Annemarie Novello, a trauma counsellor, said: “The child that you see after the attack is not the same child as before. Children of five regress to become children aged two after such a trauma. They become very clingy and needy and won’t want to sleep in their own rooms. Their feelings of safety, dependent on their parents being in control, has been taken away.”