Mom killed in gang shooting a day before her wedding

October 11, 2017
| Report Focus News

A Manenberg mother has been killed by a gang bullet a day before she was due to celebrate her 15th wedding anniversary.

Now her heartbroken husband says he doesn’t know how he will raise their three young children on his own.

Thirty-year-old Malieka Davids died in Groote Schuur Hospital on Monday night after being hit by a stray bullet during a gang shootout in Manenberg.

At the time, she was talking to her friend in Gonubie Road shortly after 7pm.

Her friend, Geraldine Adonis, says she and Malieka were sitting on the pavement opposite her home with Malieka’s nine-year-old son, Sodick, when two gunmen came running around the corner.

She says Malieka was showing her her wedding pictures and said she and her husband, Reza, would be celebrating their anniversary the next day.

“Ons het hier gesit, toe kom twee manne en skiet. Hulle het vir haar in die maag geskiet en ek het geskree vir help (We were sitting here when two men came and started shooting. They shot her in the stomach and I screamed for help). The ambulance came to get her and we later heard she died,” says a heartbroken Geraldine.

Residents say the two men were wearing hoodies, and only one of them had a firearm.

Neighbour Gabriel Harris says he was standing in his yard when he heard the gunshots and the next moment, a bullet hit his foot.

Police spokesperson, Captain FC van Wyk, confirms the incident and says: “A murder case was registered for investigation. The suspects are unknown as well as the motive”.

Reza says instead of celebrating their wedding anniversary, he is planning the janaazah of his wife of 15 years.

The couple have three children together named Fazlin, Sodick and Ashraa.

The grieving father says while he is happy his son was not harmed, the boy is severely traumatised after seeing his mother being shot.

“He keeps asking me: ‘Daddy, why must the gangsters shoot?’”

“This is very difficult for me. She stayed at home and looked after the children and I worked in my mother’s shop. I don’t know how I am going to look after the children on my own.

“They are very close to her. They love their mommy. I will leave the guys that murdered her in God’s hands.”

Family and friends gathered at Malieka’s house on Tuesday but Reza says the family is struggling to get her body from the state morgue.

“There is apparently more than 100 bodies that have to be released so we have to wait. It looks like the janaazah will only be [on Wednesday].”

Anyone with any information about the shooting is asked to call Crime Stop on 08600 10111.