[imagesource: Open Streets]

Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand, you’ll know that life is tough in Mitchells Plain.

Life is also treated as cheap by some, with CCTV footage capturing a chilling hit in the parking lot outside Premium Sports Bar, at the corner of Amandel and Dagbreek Street, earlier this year.

There is no footage of the drive-by shooting that took place in Mandalay, Mitchells Plain, on Saturday night which left one person dead and seven others injured, but there are eyewitness accounts.

A 21st birthday celebration was cut short when a green Honda Ballade opened fire, with News24 reporting that one of those injured was just five years old:

David Mafate, who lives at the house where the shooting occurred, said they were having a party when the assailants opened fire on guests outside.

“We heard the [murdered] woman shouting outside: ‘Please don’t kill me’. And the next moment we saw a car coming past and the shooting [started]. The woman they shot was with us at the party – she went to the shop just a few doors down to buy something,” Mafate said.

Image: Supplied to News24]

“Many of the guests who were here are nurses, teachers and youngsters. No one has any links to any gangsters. Everyone was terrified when they heard eight gunshots,” he said.

Western Cape police spokesperson Colonel Andre Traut said authorities had implemented a 72-hour activation plan to find the culprits responsible for the shooting.

Lentegeur community policing forum (CPF) chairperson Byron de Villiers urged anyone with information to come forward.

UPDATE – three suspects have been arrested for the shooting on Saturday night. More details here.

It really is terrifying to imagine such senseless violence on what should have been a special celebration, but many residents have come to expect the worst.

As election campaigning kicks into overdrive, residents speak of gang violence, substance abuse, and poverty, with cries for help falling on deaf ears.

Again, from News24:

A mother who walks her young child to school early in the morning on her way to work says in winter, it is especially dangerous as people with ill intentions hang around in the veil of darkness, looking for easy targets.

“I clutch my child’s hand and hurry through this shortcut as fast as I can. I put on my angry face so that no one tries anything with me. You must always be on your guard. In the dark, strange things happen.”

Isgaak Galant says he has voiced his concerns at local ward committee meetings regarding how ratepayers’ requests go unheeded, until that time in the election cycle:

“When the sewerage system overflows and we have to sit with that disgusting sight and smell for days, where is the service then? Now the politicians want to walk around in our streets and parade… looking past the potholes, overgrown fields and neglected parks, asking for support. They expect me to vote for them? No ways.”

That’s a feeling shared by many communities.

Free t-shirts, hollow words, and the promise that things will be different this time around.

Meanwhile, life in areas like Mitchells Plain continues to be a daily struggle.

[sources:news24&news24]