Tears of disbelief flowed in Ottery on Monday night as an 18-year-old girl died in the backseat of her father’s car after being shot multiple times during a drive-by shooting.
Tamika Solomons, 18, is the latest victim in a bloody war between the Mongrels and Yuru Katte gangs which also claimed the life of mom Monique Cottle over the weekend.
The devastated family of the Grade 11 learner from Fairmount High School say she was walking to the shop shortly after 8pm when the varke drove past and fired a hail of bullets at the innocent meisie.
Mom Gillian, 49, says she heard so many skote it sounded like a war zone.
“We were at home and she just walked to the shop to buy entjies,” she says.
“We heard so many skote go off it was like a war zone. I ran and they said aunty Gillian, Tamika is geskiet. She was shot three times.”
Dad Izak de Klerk, 49, says he rushed to carry Tamika to his car and drove towards Retreat Day Hospital but she died just as they arrived.
“My friend helped me because he said the ambulance will take too long. I was speaking to her the whole time but then just before she died, I heard her say ‘pa’ and then she died.”
Police spokesperson, Colonel Andre Traut, confirms the shooting near Bethal Court and says the circumstances are under investigation while no arrests have yet been made.
On Tuesday, hartseer residents gathered at the family’s home where they expressed their anger at the shooting while her parents are sukkeling to raise R5500 to bury her.
Gillian branded the skollies cowards who have robbed Tamika of her young life.
The mom says the teen was a bright pupil who wanted to become a social worker.
She says too many innocent people are paying the price for gang violence.
“It tells me they don’t know their enemy. But this must stop. Our children want to live for something and then someone else comes and steals [their lives].”
In a chilling message to her daughter’s killer, Gillian says she hopes he can “take his punishment like a man”.
“To the person who shot my child. I am not kwaad. I am hartseer but I forgive you.
“But remember the wheel turns. I must take it like a mother and I am telling you, you must take it like a man.
“Mothers are now burying innocent children, who did nothing and had their whole lives in front of them. Hou op!”
On Friday night, Monique Cottle, 26, was killed just seven months after her four-year-old daughter Scarlett was also shot and killed in a gang-related shooting.
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