Two women killed in Nyanga taxi rank shooting

Two women were killed on Wednesday after gunmen armed with high-calibre weapons opened fire on 10 women at the Nyanga taxi rank in Cape Town.

Deputy provincial commissioner for policing Major-Gen Luyanda Damoyi said three suspects arrived at the rank and opened fire on a taxi in which the women were travelling.

The women were on their way to the airport for a meeting called by the Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (Cata).

Luyanda said eight people were injured and have been taken to hospital.

“We are investigating two cases of murder and eight cases of attempted murder. We are following leads and have mobilised enough resources to apprehend the suspects.”

Damoyi said police were still establishing the role of the women within Cata.

“We are concerned about the extent of violence in the Western Cape. We have a stabilisation plan that we are executing daily. We have made many arrests and recovered several firearms. We are determined to overcome the violence, but we are appealing to communities to assist us with information,” he said.

“We have 43 cartridges on the ground. You can see that all of them are high calibre,” he said.

“Over the past week, we confiscated more than 50 firearms, including rifles. In this case, we are following leads which we cannot disclose. We are hopeful that we will be able to solve this case.”

The Nyanga taxi rank has been plagued by shootings since the beginning of the year, with incidents reported in January, April and September.

“We suspect that it is an intra-Cata conflict, but we must still establish that,” said Damoyi.

“The intelligence we received was about the venue for the meeting, which was the airport. We had our deployment around that area and responded to this incident within three minutes.”

Nyanga Community Police Forum chairperson Dumisani Qwebe said he was informed about the shooting at around 10am.

“This incident has shaken the whole community. The victims were women, and that is bad news. We are appealing to the taxi association to use dialogue whenever there are misunderstandings rather than violence.”

“This is not the first time people are killed at this rank,” Qwebe said.

“The commuters are at the receiving end of this violence. I heard that the suspects are very young. This was not a mistake. The victims were going to the same place, and the intention was to ensure that they did not reach their destination. The shooting was not a coincidence.”