Wentworth is the area in which I grew up. The area that my mum and dad and other family members still live in.
A good friend of mine sent me a text last night after news broke that three hijacking suspects tryna make off with a stolen vehicle from Wentworth, were shot. Two dead at that point. This morning, I believe it changed to three. That was after they began shooting at the police and trying to run the them off the road. After the two dreadful weekends that Wentworth had, none of us wanted to hear any more bad news. After the two weekends that Wentworth had, she told me that she took her son for a haircut and waited for him, in fear.
See, gang violence has always been something that's plagued the Wentworth community. Drugs and alcohol too.
I've always wondered, even as a little kid-------my older siblings and family has seen a lot more than I ever did and to this day, I think I've seen one incident, face to face. Not the fight. The injury. I remember us being at my aunts and my uncle was lying on the living room floor, on his stomach. There were fresh stab wounds all over his back, still bleeding. My aunts were attending to him at the time.
I hated having to see that, blood and those slits in his flesh. Something I've never forgotten and I've always wondered why people were so angry at each other just for living in a different area of the same place. Back then, it was mostly about that. Where one lived. It made no sense to me then and it makes no sense to me now. And it was worse if as a man, you came into Wentworth from a totally different Coloured area like Sydenham or something. Your life was in grave danger then.
Again, what sense does that make? And then I realized a long time ago that the saddest part in all of this violence and hatred and unrest and death? These guys don't even know why they are fighting. Living in a different place hardly stood ground as a reason to me. And many others.
I was approached by gangster as a young teenager, I'm sure I told y'all about this, fresh from a fight, bloodstained bushknife in his one hand, other hand holding onto my trembling fingers. I wanted to move farrrrrrrr away, immediately. Typing this, I feel fortunate at how that situation turned out. He didn't have to let me go because my friend yelled, "Stacey, your dad's calling you." Another memory that I wish I'd let go along with the rest.
Except now, the violence amongst the gangs-----and it dies down and then starts up again and dies down and then starts up again------it's been quiet for a while and then someone got shot in
May. Now, most of the violence is linked to drugs. If all and not only some, of the police in the area weren't on the take, maybe there'd be hope to clean up the area.
This plague has claimed countless lives in this place. Unnecessarily so. The men that killed my uncle when I was real young? He was a gangster too. So was his brother, my other uncle. It seems most of the men their age, that I can remember, were. Those guys that killed him lived about a five minute walk away from him. But because the main street ran between the two areas, it meant, two gangs.
Still? I can't find the sense.
Because it's been home to myself and so many Coloured people, it pains me to see front page news like this;
48-hour gang war in Durban
CRIME & COURTS / 31 May '16, 1:30pm
Durban - A packed church was petrol-bombed, a man shot dead and a 71-year-old woman hit in the arm by a stray bullet as gang war gripped Wentworth.
Kyle Sewell was shot 11 times in Stower Road, Wentworth. Religious leaders and residents believe the violence, over a 48-hour period, was sparked by the murder of a former gangster outside a Florida Road nightclub two weeks ago.
Now, in the midst of a spike in drive-by shootings and clashes between rival gangs - over the lucrative drug trade - residents of the south Durban suburb are questioning why police recently shut down a gang task force set up by the Hawks two years ago.
Pastor John Bailey, a community organiser, said the latest violence had been caused by the vacuum left after police shut the task team.
"We have no idea why they shut down that unit. They managed to quell the violence and made some good arrests. There was absolutely no reason given for its closure. We even wrote to the provincial police commissioner asking them to keep the Hawks unit for another year, but they didn't," he said.
:-( I'm tired of hearing about death. Everywhere. And at that end, someone always becomes richer or more powerful. While other's become poorer or even deader. Deader? Yes, deader!
I don't know what has happened to life. Everywhere I look, I open the newspaper, I turn on the tv, I read Yahoo news and there's nothing but chaos all around us. What happened to life? What happened to that feeling that I used to have when I was building sand houses with my best friend filled with so much hope and simplicity? As if it's impossible to carry that through into adulthood.
People are dying for being the wrong colour. Wrong religion. Wrong gender. Children, even. People are dying for cellphones and cars and shit that's worth nothing when you compare any of them to--------LIFE!
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