Johannesburg – Eleven-year-old Kimberly Mzizi had just taken a break from skipping with her friends when she felt blood trickling from her chest.
“I am bleeding,” she said, clutching her chest.
The girl she was leaning against turned to look at her, saw the blood, got scared and pulled away.
As Kimberly was about to fall, another friend leaned towards her quickly, grabbed her, laid her down on the ground gently and fled.
Scared, the rest of the group scattered, leaving Kimberly dead on the gravel.
A police officer, allegedly looking scared, ran to where Kimberly lay, conducted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and checked her for wounds. When he realised that the girl was dead, he gave up.
Kimberly’s mother, Ntokozo, had been watching the afternoon news in her Bramfischer home when a crying neighbour burst through the door and told her that her child had been injured.
Ntokozo rushed outside to be met by the sight of her daughter’s body lying at the neighbour’s gate.
“I tried to wake her up, shaking her and calling her name. But she was just quiet,” the woman recalled. “I heard that the officer who shot her was chasing after a suspect. I wondered why he had to shoot here when there were children in the streets. However, only God will judge him,” Ntokozo said.
Ntokozo sat on her bed on Tuesday, surrounded by relatives.
Three months ago, she had buried her husband. A week before he died, he suffered a stroke and was paralysed. “I’m still in shock and don’t even know how I will bury my daughter. I don’t have a cent,” she said.
A neighbour, whose daughter grabbed Kimberly before she fell, said she had seen people running past her yard before hearing a gunshot.
Margaret Rahube said she had initially thought the sound was one of her windows breaking.
However, when she saw the officer performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Kimberly, she realised what had happened.
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The Guardian 