Pattern of violence prevails

ON REPEAT: FUELLED BY STATE NEGLECT THROUGH CRIMINAL SYNDICATES

- SHARON LETLAPE

» No protection for vulnerable communities.

As South Africans, many of us are asking the haunting question: what happened in Lusikisiki? How did 18 lives vanish in a moment of terror during what should have been a peaceful gathering? The massacre of the Sinqina and Matu families is a horror that has rocked the village of Ngobozana and shaken the entire nation.

In a senseless and gruesome attack, unidentified gunmen opened fire on the families, mercilessly killing 15 women and three men, including two teenagers aged 14 and 19. These were not criminals or combatants. They were mothers, daughters, brothers and elders gathered to mark the end of a mourning period. The ceremony was supposed to bring closure but, instead, it brought more deaths. Each life lost is a deep wound to the nation, a family shattered, a future extinguished.

This massacre did not happen in isolation. It is part of a pattern in South Africa.

Less than 24 hours before this, a young man was shot and left critically wounded just 100m from where the attack on the families took place. He was trying to stop hijackers from stealing his family's car.