A father is at the centre of a culpable homicide investigation after he allegedly fled the scene of a car crash that killed his daughter.
The accident occurred on the M5 near Rondebosch on Boxing Day.
The 11-year-old girl died on the scene and her injured seven-year-old brother was taken to hospital.
Of the first people on the scene were husband and wife Binyameen and Thaakirah Mohamed who described how the girl died minutes before the ambulance arrived.
The shaken woman went live on Facebook with her partner, explaining how they kept the boy alive by praying.
“The boy was so scared but very brave and the 11-year-old girl who was also in the car had passed away,” Thaakirah said.
“I could not move because the little boy was struggling to breathe. I think his ribs were broken.
“I started reciting the Qur’an and he calmed down, the girl died by my feet just before the ambulance arrived.”
Binyameen says they heard a loud bang and when they went to investigate, they saw there was an accident on the M5.
When they arrived at the scene, the silver Audi A3 hatchback was lying on its roof in a canal.
The homeless people who live near the scene took the injured children out of the car but the driver was missing.
Binyamees says: “We ran out onto the M5 and there was a car in a ditch and there three people and there was a boy who was badly hurt, he was bleeding, there was a lot of blood, he was very small.
“He was the first person we saw and they handed him to us.”
It is believed the man had been drunk and lost control of the car, causing the accident.
Thaakirah says in the Facebook post: “The reason we are doing this live video is because there was their father who was in the car who was allegedly drunk when the accident happened. He left his children there.
“Even when the police arrived, the father was still not found.”
The boy was transported to Red Cross Hospital but has since been discharged and is back with his family while the couple is raising funds for the girl’s funeral.
Police spokesman Colonel André Traut says no one has been arrested for the incident.
“The case docket has been transferred to Mowbray SAPS for further investigation and no one has been charged as yet.”
Traut did not say whether the father had been found yet.
mandilakhe.tshwete@inl.co.za