By Francis Hweshe | Cape Argus
Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA – TWO foreign shopkeepers, both immigrants from Ethiopia, have been killed in their store in Milnerton, a suburb of Cape Town. The robbers took the fruit and fled when they could not open the cash register.
The killings bring the number of immigrants murdered in the Western Cape over the past two weeks to 10.
Milnerton police confirmed yesterday that the two Ethiopians had been shot dead on Tuesday night while working in their shop on Mnandi Street in Du Noon. Station spokeswoman Daphne Dell said a banana and an apple had been stolen.
Dell ruled out the possibility that the murders had been xenophobic. She said one of the suspects had been armed and had fired several shots at Yonatan GebreMeskel, 22, hitting him in the head and chest.
Awake Abebe, believed to be in his early 20s, had been shot in the back. Both had died at the scene.
Both suspects are still at large.
A reliable source told the Cape Argus the murders were about “business”.
“They were hitmen sent to take them out. It’s business,” he said, alleging that Somalis in the area had been ordered by taxi operators to pay a R14,000 “protection fee”.
Last year, after the xenophobic attacks in the Western Cape, Du Noon taxi operators admitted to demanding a protection fee from foreign nationals who ran shops.
The killings follow at least three others involving foreign nationals:
# On Saturday, seven Zimbabweans were burnt alive when a De Doorns shack was set alight. A 26-year-old man has appeared in the De Doorns Magistrate’s Court on murder charges. The names of the dead, aged between 23 and 40, have not yet been released.
# Last Monday, Mohamed Mango, 24, of Somalia was shot dead after he tried to stop a group of robbers frisking his friends on a footbridge leading to the Home Affairs Centre in Airport Industria. He was shot in the chest and died on the scene. Police are investigating a case of murder and robbery.
# Last Friday, Congolese refugee Carol Muganguzi, 19, had his lips cut and tongue stabbed by criminals, 10 metres from the Nyanga Refugee Reception Centre.
When the Cape Argus visited Du Noon yesterday, an eye-witness said: “I heard two shots. When I came over to the shop, I saw a pool of blood. One of the bodies was lying close to the fridge with a shot in the head. The other was close to the door with a shot in his back. It’s all about jealousy. The shop was always neat and people loved to come and buy from them,” she said.
She said the victims had re-opened for business only three days earlier, after having closed because of the recent taxi violence, which had resulted in some Somali shops in the area being looted.
“It was not xenophobic nor a robbery. They were not hungry,” said Bazil Congo, the victims’ landlord.
He said a third man had survived the attack by running away.
“It is just senseless and merciless killing,” Congo said.
Another shop owner said: “They were deeply religious, very kind and gentle. They loved to be part of this community, helping where they could.”
A tearful Ethiopian shop owner in the area said: “I don’t know why they killed my brothers and no one is taking responsibility.”
13 thoughts on “2 Ethiopian shopkeepers killed in South Africa”
the black population of south africa are ignorant,danger and raciste
they hate the white and indians south africans citizens,and also the immigrant from zimbabwe,somalia,congo,and also ethiopian ogadenis
the biggest foreign bizzness are the ethiopian ogadenis of ethiosomalis,they have a lot of shops,in capetown,johannesburg,pretoria,port elisabeth, east london,and durban
the black south african have been killed more than 28 ethiosomalis bizznessmen and women
it is more safe in gaza of sri lanka than
cape town
We helped them to be free. Now they kill ethiopians! What a shame! Slaves are always slave!!
Congrats…….Melese Zenawi. Thanks to you we even migrated to S. Africa, and get killed.
No wonder those monkeys love banana
All the anti-aparthied struggle was for nothing. The savage South-African were better served by their white masters during aparthied. The whole nation is ignoring the the ruthless massacre of immigrants who came a long way from their homes in search of a better life and they treat them like animals. South Africans have already forgotten the helping hand that the world gave them during their struggle and treating helpless peoples worse than they were treated during their ordeal. The whole episode makes you loose faith in the nobility of the human race.
The south africans hate foreigners. These ethiopians left ethiopia because they had no freedom in weyane land. south africa has the highest criminal rate in the world. why did they go there? I dont advise anyone to travel to south africa.
Get out of South Africa and do not linger!
The people of South Africa have had little tolerance to the oppressive government of P.W. Botha and F. W. de Klerk but have no patience or tolerance at all to the few hard-working and harmless other African migrants (sidetengoch) whom they think they are taking their jobs.
These South Africans have learned the hatred of other human beings from their past dark history of apartheid, and whenever they see or meet foreigners even though their colors are like theirs, they are threatened as if these foreigners were descendants of P. W. Botha. Or they think that P.W. Botha has resurrected from his grave and has brought these colored people to retake the land of South Africa.
Therefore, the natives of South Africa have one thing in common and one solution to the problem they are scared of to death: burn and kill all new comers and take no responsibility, and as they burn their huts, steal their properties, they also cut their lips and tongues.
In my definition of humans, I will call the people of South Africa who practice such barbaric acts on other human beings subhuman; they are still under the tyrannical rule of P. W. Botha, praising the past apartheid system that shackled them for a number of years. What they need is a government that resembles like P. W. Botha’s and that acts like Botha or worst.
Whenever I think of South Africa, three personalities come to my mind: Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and because of these great personalities, I have always thought that South Africa is the envy of the world. I was totally wrong; in fact, South Africa is a country that has spurned the advices of its famous leaders – Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu – to be friendly to the foreigners and not to go back to the South Africa’s dark history.
I am sure these criminal South Africans who killed my Ethiopian friends – Yonatan GebreMeskel and Aweke Abebe and other seven Zimbabweans whom they burnt alive and the Congolese young man whom they cut his lips and stabbed his tongue – have put an indelible stigma on the history of the Southern African people.
The three Nobel Peace Prize winners, F. W. de Klerk, Nelson Mandela, and Desmond Tutu will never be able to erase this blood-tainted stigma, this shameful infamy, and this lawlessness of the highest degree from the modern history of South Africa; it will remain posted in the annals of each African country, especially in those countries whose sons and daughters were perished in South Africa because they were found, not coveting or stealing or breaking the law of the land, but they were found working hard to improve their lives and the lives of their family.
They went to South Africa, believing the South African government will protect them from some lawless South African people whose only duties are to hate foreigners, to kill them, and still go free to commit the same crime all over again.
Most of the blames, however, rests on countries, such as Ethiopia, Somalia, Zimbabwe, and Congo for not providing their citizens enough jobs or sending them to another countries without first warning them the danger they would face in other countries like South Africa whose people are the products of P. W. Botha, not necessarily the children or adherents of Nelson Mandela or Desmond Tutu. If they were, they would have accepted the Ethiopians, the Somalis, the Zimbabweans, and the Congolese as their own brothers and sisters; instead, they beat them up, robbed them, burned them, and kill them.
In my opinion, South Africa should be ousted from the OAU until it has captured the criminals and brought them to justice and compensated the victims’ family.
In the old days, the words that exactly described the people of South Africa were segregation, apartheid, racism, and color. Now the common words that describe South Africa precisely are xenophobia, jealousy, hatred, and lawlessness. Because of such rampant lawlessness in the country, my advice to those foreigners who are struggling to live in South Africa is get out of South Africa and do not linger, for your lives are in great danger!
The harsh Reality of our Failed Govt. Innocent Citizens are trying to Live their day today life in a Foreign land and their faith is not so lucky. Here we see another 2 Victims of Violence, Black on Black Crime. Indeed for a Fact who ever knows South Africa knows that no one will get arrested and prosecuted for this cruel and coward crime, it sure will end up on the Crime Statistics. May their soul rest in peace and my heartfelt condolences to their families & Friends.
Madingo worku
these people come from the same country where mandela is born? i don’t think so mandela fought all his life to see a better tomorrow,but failed to succeed.look his country is filled with a bunch of criminals and gangsters who are embarassing the great Mandela.i fell pity for his fruitless effort.shame to the country and shame to ANC.
We shouldn’t jump to conclusion by assigning blame to all of black South Africans for the crimes committed, by individuals. However, the inability of the SA Police to protect residents and the astronomical crime rate in the country is a sure sign of the failure of the nation. In the west SA along with Woyane’s Ethiopia are known as the rising democracies of Africa, while nations like Somalia are deemed failed states. The British and the Americans went after Mugabe with vengence not because his misrule but because of the land reform he introduced. Without the support extended by the west to all of the corrupt leaders willing sell their countries we wouldn’t have such a chaotic situation. In my opinion, the way forward is to get rid of sell-out regimes in Africa.
This is very sad story.
Unite Ethiopia and defeat the killers.
Never ever give up. God Bless Ethiopia.
I just can’t understand the government turning a blind eye to such anarchy. Those mafias terorising and murdering people. I am very angry with the S. African government.
There is no need to kill people at all. If they wanted to take money or apple, they should do that only. It is not being Ethiopian or other at all. Killing people neither help them to get what they wanted nor make them patriots who fought for their country. It sad to know South Africa in such way.