Four arrested after six-year-old girl shot dead while playing in Lavender Hill

The police’s Anti-Gang Unit (AGU) arrested four people in the wake of a shooting that left a six-year-old girl dead and a man injured in Lavender Hill, Cape Town, Western Cape police said on Monday.

Nathlia Pienaar had been playing outside on Saturday when a group shot at a 24-year-old man. She was caught in the crossfire.

She was still holding onto her skipping rope when family members found her in the street just minutes later, the Weekend Argus reported.

Pienaar was rushed to hospital, where she later died.

The girl had been in Grade R at Levana Primary School, said Lucinda Evans, an activist and the director of NGO Philisa Abafazi Bethu.

Western Cape police spokesperson FC van Wyk said the AGU had worked around the clock to hunt down those responsible.

The unit swooped on a home in Sheppard Road, Lavender Hill, on Saturday, where they seized a Glock firearm. They arrested a 52-year-old man on a charge of possessing a prohibited firearm.

Their investigation led them to another house on Sunday, where they arrested two men on charges of murder and attempted murder.

“Subsequent to the two arrests, they visited another house where they discovered a magazine and ammunition believed to be that of the firearm that shot the two victims on Saturday,” said Van Wyk.

A woman, 39, was arrested for the illegal possession of ammunition.

They would appear in Wynberg Magistrate’s Court once they had been charged, said Van Wyk.

Evans, who had visited the family, said they were not doing very well.

“The family doesn’t have money to bury the child,” she said.

She had helped organise counselling for Pienaar’s relatives.

“I am never going to get used to going to a family and, instead of speaking about a children’s party, I have to speak about funerals,” she said.

“It’s awful.”

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