Cape Town - “I still feel like this is a dream I will wake up from and he will come walking through the door with a smile on his face.”
These are the heartbreaking words of Sarah Klaase, who for years raised her grandson, soccer star Diego Cupido, 15, who was among six teenagers shot in Rocklands on Friday evening.
A dark cloud hovered over the park on Bosduif Road yesterday, where the teens between the ages of 15 and 17 gathered.
Diego, the youngest of the lot, joined his group of friends just after 7pm before the shots rang out.
A friend of the teens who was on the scene, said the group would usually meet up and stand together for a while.
“We all know each other from school, so when they saw each other they would stand and talk.
“On Friday, the shop was full, so a few of them stood in the park waiting to go to the shop.
“I was busy making a fire when I heard about 16 shots ... I first thought it was klappetjies (fireworks).”
The friend said the laughter quickly turned into screams.
“I heard screaming, like chaos outside, all the children who were at the shop were running.”
Among those who also lost their lives were Luke Middleway and Clayton Sterris.
“I knew the two of them smoked and went to stand in the park away from the adults, I looked up and saw them fall, I shouted their names but there was no answer …”
The friend said she was then met with scenes of Middleway crawling towards her gate.
“He crawled towards my house, it looked like his legs were shot, broken, there was so much blood, he just looked at us, we then rushed him to hospital.”
While Middleway was being rushed to hospital, Sterris and Cupido’s bodies lay metres apart, where a massive crowd gathered around them.
Cupido’s aunt, Pedro Klaase, said her grandmother, Sarah, who raised him, came running down the stairs and just said “Diego”.
Sarah Klaase said she arrived at the scene still in a daze.
“The whole day felt like a dream. I woke up with Diego on my mind. I wanted to see him before he went to school, I saw him walking with his bag on his back.
“In fact, the whole week was a dream. It’s like God was preparing me, I anointed him the whole week, I thought it was God preparing him for a soccer journey, I would never think this”
She said her grandson had dreams of becoming a professional soccer player.
Rocklands Neighbourhood Watch member, Valerie Moses, said a call was made that all shops close for business at 9pm.
“We see a lot of incidents happen in front of shops or when our children are walking to the shop, so this is one of the proactive steps.”
This shooting comes less than 72 hours since another mass shooting in Tafelsig on Wednesday, where Whitney Dennis, 15, was shot and killed alongside her friend Junaid Hill, 24, and two others wounded.
Moses’ colleague Abieda Adams said the whole community was in mourning. “Children are supposed to bury their parents but in our communities it’s the other way around.”
Police spokesperson, Malcolm Pojie, said Mitchells Plain SAPS opened three murder as well as three attempted murder cases.
tracy-lynn.ruiters@inl.co.za
Cape Argus