Skielik residents mourn victims

2008-01-17 13:37

Swartruggens - Grieving relatives of the victims of the Skielik killings gathered outside their homes to comfort one another, after leaving court where the alleged killer appeared briefly on Thursday.

A man and two children were gunned down outside their homes in the settlement, 10 kilometres outside Swartruggens in the North West province, on Monday.

Johan Nel, 18, appeared in the Swartruggens Magistrate's Court for allegedly shooting dead a 30-year-old man, a 10-year-old boy and a three-month-old baby.

Smoking a cigarette outside his shack, Moses Clifton, 68, told how his daughter and grandchild were shot 20 metres outside his home.

The grandfather was at a neighbour's house when he heard gunshots.

'I heard him reloading'

"The child and the mother ran out of the house and the boy walked down the road and shot them. I hid behind the house with my back against the wall and I heard him reloading his gun. I stayed at the corner watching and then I saw the mother and the child dead in the road.

"I was at court this morning to see this man. My heart is breaking. My child and my grandchild died."

He said the killer parked his bakkie at the settlement's spaza shop and proceeded to run down the dusty street "just shooting".

"Hy moet hang (He must hang)," he said when asked what the accused's fate should be.

Johanna Fafaya, 49, a neighbour, said she had been working in the veld when she heard gunshots.

"When I got here I saw two people lying dead."

Fafaya said she returned to the settlement despite being told by fleeing residents that there was a man shooting people.

"I was so scared. I was trying to find my son but he had already run away."

Fafaya said the shooter ran through the streets before turning into the veld towards town, leaving his bakkie behind.

"He even shot an ostrich in the veld," he said.

Nel was remanded in custody and was expected to appear in court again next Thursday.

- SAPA