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A five-year-old boy is fighting for his life after a stray bullet hit him in the stomach in a shooting in Helenvale, Port Elizabeth, said Eastern Cape police on Tuesday.
Police are investigating an attempted murder.
Colonel Priscilla Naidu said no one had yet been arrested for the shooting in Terblanche Road.
On Sunday evening, a 35-year-old man had been sitting in the road at around 5.30pm, when two men approached him and started firing shots, hitting him in the hip.
The boy, who was sitting nearby, was hit in his stomach. He is in hospital in the intensive care unit.
The gunmen fled in a white Hyundai.
The incident comes after a six-year-old girl was shot and killed just a few blocks away in Helenvale two weeks ago.
Jay-Linn Jantjies had been sitting on the pavement in front of her house in Kobus Road on September 23 when shots were fired and she was hit in the head.
Naidu said a tracing team and detectives spotted a gunman in Deverell Road on Thursday and chased him to Chamois Street, where he was arrested.
“He was detained on a charge of attempted murder, as well as an unrelated case of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and pointing of a firearm.”
The girl died in hospital the next day.
Meanwhile, Eastern Cape police commissioner, Lieutenant General Liziwe Ntshinga, activated a 72-hour plan this week to hunt down the killers.
“We will not tolerate such audacity from these criminals. We will be forcefully clamping down on this lawlessness and we will be asserting the authority of the state by vigorously implementing our operational strategies,” she said.
“We cannot allow our innocent children to become victims, therefore I urge the communities not to protect these criminals but to expose them.”
Anyone who can assist police with their investigation should contact Detective Colonel Mike Grobler on 082 442 1825, or Gelvandale police on 041 402 2018.
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