Togo bus ambush has SA parallels

The police have gunned down three suspects believed to have been involved in the Christmas Day massacre of Inanda FM presenter Ntombikayise Ngwane (24) and her friends.

In the early hours of Friday morning, possibly acting upon information obtained from the suspect who was arrested on December 31 at a house in Eshowe, where he had been hiding, they swooped on the alleged murderers who paid the maximum price.

“I have been told that three people that were wanted for the massacre were shot dead by police. Details of what happened were still sketchy. I’m on my way to the scene,” said Director Phindile Radebe.

In total it brings the number of people killed or murdered from the Christmas Day massacre to nine with a further three wounded.

Statistics that are all too common in South Africa but only comparable when assessed against war zones rather than other crime-plagued countries.

On Christmas Day, at the home of Ngwane, the presenter and her friends were enjoying all the festivities of the day when three men, armed with R5 and AK47 rifles, burst in and randomly opened fire on them killing six and wounding three.

The motive is believed to have been the killing of Sizwe Ngwane, who ironically survived the attack by playing dead and thereby emerging unscathed.

As in the case of the Midrand murder of 42-year-old Kobus Snyman in front of his family last Friday night, innocent people slaughtered simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Absolutely no regard for Ntombikayise, her friends or family as these thugs simply mowed them down in their quest to murder one man who they couldn’t even be bothered to check to see whether he was dead or alive.

A mentality that is easily equated with the murderers who targeted a bus filled with the Togolese players and staff when it crossed the border from the Democratic Republic of Congo into the Angolan enclave of Cabinda.

There the motive was the ongoing Cabinda separatists wanting to send a message to the Angolan government that nobody is safe until they are given independence. So they simply gunned down people from Togo who were totally unrelated to the conflict but conveniently filled their gun sights.

In some respects the Angolan murderers can at least claim some sort of — pathetic though it may be — justification for their acts, those that murdered six people on Christmas Day have none.

In the case of Ntombikayise, South Africa has lost a person who filled people’s home with warmth and laughter. Her relatives, who have gone into hiding, have lost a daughter, a sister, a family member. The same applies to the family and friends of those who were murdered with her. The family of Kobus Snyman have lost their husband, father and provider.

The statistics of crime in South Africa continue to cause alarm overseas and terrify the people of this country.

It is time for the government and all those charged with bringing this plague under control to accept that South Africa is a war zone and that Ntombikayise Ngwane and Kobus Snyman are casualties of that war.