We'll open the door – just please don't kill us! was the terrified plea neighbours heard before robbers broke into a spaza shop in Extension 8 and stabbed the Somalian owners, before making off with meat and money.
We'll open the door – just please don't kill us! was the terrified plea neighbours heard before robbers broke into a spaza shop in Extension 8 and stabbed the Somalian owners, before making off with meat and money. Nearby residents described being woken up in the early hours of Wednesday by loud banging, which they later discovered was the sound of the door of the shop owners – they run the spaza shop from their home – being smashed. They had been too terrified to go outside and look. A woman who shares the subdivided house with the two men said she had heard loud banging at their door around 3am. She said she and her family were terrified and stayed inside until the police arrived. They were shouting all the time, saying, 'My friend, open up the door, open up the door!' and when the Somalians realised that things were really bad, now we heard them saying, 'Wait! We'll open the door – just please don't kill us! the woman said. She said once the police arrived, she and her family had tried to go outside to check on the two Somalians, but found their own door blocked by bricks. This, she believed, was the robbers' way of preventing them from going to help their neighbours. She said the robbers had taken meat and money – how much she didn't know. She said one of the victims had been stabbed in the shoulder, the other in the ribs. Another neighbour, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals by the attackers, said she had called the police. She showed Grocott's Mail a pole she said had been used to batter down the door. Grahamstown police spokesperson Captain Mali Govender confirmed the robbery and said no arrests had been made yet. An appeal is made to the community, especially spaza shop owners to raise the alarm, contact the SAPS, use a mobile panic button, as soon as you hear that you being attacked, she said. Last month police announced a meeting that was to have taken place at the Extension 9 hall to discuss business robberies – particularly spaza shops – in the light of an increasing number of such attacks. Because of poor turnout, however, it was postponed.
