Gunmen attack villagers

Bullets are flying and the death toll is rising in a small village in Centane where balaclava-masked gunmen attack in the middle of the night, boot down doors to huts and shoot at will.

The attacks in Ngcizela are often synchronised and appear to be planned. But police see no link in the campaign of terror although four people are dead and two have survived gunshot wounds this year.

The violence may also have spread to Buffalo City Metro’s Duncan Village, where residents have also been attacked.

The victims of the gunmen are:

• Three brothers from Ngcizela, who were killed in two separate attacks in Duncan Village this year;
• An 85-year-old villager and grandmother, Nodangile Pantsi, shot in her bed;
• The granny’s 11-year-old granddaughter, shot twice in the chest in the same attack but who managed to crawl away, hide and survive; and
• Ngcizela village headman, Mxolisi Soga, who had two bullets fired into his leg.

With his wife Nolubabalo and their two little children he has fled the village and is in hiding.

They were attacked in the middle of the night last Thursday.

Soga told the Dispatch the gunmen were hunting him and his family and wanted them all dead.

Describing the attack, he said he was asleep in a flat with his wife and children while his mother, Nopumzile, was in another house with two other relatives.

“The gunmen simultaneously kicked in the doors of the two houses and started shooting. I fought back, trying to protect my family, and I was hit twice.”

Nolubabalo and their children crouched behind a bed.

“It was by God’s grace that we survived,” said Nolubabalo.

At the same time one or more attackers were busy firing in the second house, a rondavel where Nopumzile was sleeping.

She said: “He was just firing at us ... we hid behind the bed ... shots were fired directly at us.”

Soga said he did not know the motive, but suspected it was linked to his headman role.

“There are people who are not happy with decisions that are taken collectively by the committee and they will blame the headman for it,” he said.

“We are not going to stop ruling or stop taking decisions which are for the benefit of the community because of a few individuals who have their issues.”

The gunmen fled in a Toyota Avanza immediately after the shooting.

Soga said: “I don’t want them to know my whereabouts, but I want police to deal with these people. I know who they are.

“Recently an innocent woman was killed and her granddaughter survived. And two months later they attack us.

“My village is living in fear and we don’t know who is next.”

Butterworth police spokesman Captain Jackson Manatha said police had not linked the cases and they were being investigated separately: “A case of attempted murder has been opened after the headman and his family were shot at.”

Manatha appealed to the community to assist their investigators. Soga said he planned to pass on the names of suspects. — bonganif@dispatch.co.za