‘Please help. He’s a good man’: Family claims police ‘chatted’ while UK surgeon lay dying

NHS surgeon Dr Kar Hao Teoh was tragically shot and killed in Nyanga, Cape Town, in front of his wife, mother and young son on 3 August while on a two-week holiday in South Africa.

The family were on their way back to the Mother City after a day of whale watching in Hermanus and penguin-spotting at Betty’s Bay when police allegedly directed them towards Nyanga at the height of the violent South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) taxi strike at the time.

The strike erupted due to new by-laws which allowed for authorities to impound minibus taxis when drivers do not obey traffic laws and vehicles are not roadworthy.

By the end of week-long strike, five people were left dead, including a police officer and Teoh, an orthopaedic surgeon who lived in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire. 

ALSO READ: Cape Town cop gunned down while on patrol during taxi strike

Family claims police officer directed them into notorious Nyanga

Shocking allegations against the South African Police Service (Saps) by the 40-year-old Essex surgeon’s family, emerged a few days ago in a BBC interview.

According to the publication, the family’s nightmare started when a police officer allegedly directed them towards Nyanga to circumvent a road closure.

This while the taxi strike was also in full swing in what is considered one of the city’s most dangerous townships, according to data collected by the South African Institute of Race Relations (IRR).

“We were on our way back from seeing the whales and were about 30 minutes from our destination when suddenly there was a road closure,” said his mother Ainah, who lives in Singapore, where Teoh grew up.

“There was a policeman standing in the centre of the road junction directing the cars. He stopped our car and directed my son to take the left turn and asked him to follow the white car in front of us.”

“The police made a point to knock on our window to tell us which way to go. I thought, ‘Oh, he’s a very considerate policeman’,” Teoh’s wife, Sara, told the BBC.

ALSO READ: ‘There is no hope for us’: Santaco taxi stayaway brings Cape Town to standstill

Nightmare in Nyanga: Surgeon shot in the head

Teoh and his family drove straight into the eye of the storm of the protest action.

As they were heading down Ntlangano Crescent past a burnt-out bus, Sara said she noticed a man approaching their rental car.

“The shooter came out and shot my husband as he was driving,” she said. “There was no confrontation, no provocation – nothing whatsoever. He was driving and he was shot.”

Despite being shot in the head, Teoh did not die immediately.

Family claims police refused to help

An eyewitness then helped the distraught family to a petrol station, close to the police station where Sara and Ainah claim at least three police vehicles were parked with about six police officers standing around.

The family said the officers asked what had happened, but then refused to take Teoh to a hospital in one of their police vehicles or call an ambulance.

This all the while Teoh was fighting for his life.

“Each one, we pleaded with them,” said Sara. “We said that he is a doctor. He saves lives. Please help him. He’s a good man.

“One even suggested we drive Kar Hao to the nearest hospital ourselves.”

“The windscreen was cracked with holes. I thought it was obvious that we were in desperate need of help,” Ainah told BBC.

She further claims that the officers just “walked away, and continued chatting among themselves”.

Sadly, Teoh was dead by the time an ambulance arrived at the scene an hour later.

Teoh’s mother said the police afterwards claimed they could not take them to safety in a police vehicle and that paramedics eventually came to their aid by transporting them to the British embassy.

Police responds to allegations

Western Cape provincial police spokesperson Colonel Andre Traut said the murder was under investigation.

“Should the family of the deceased have any concerns regarding the investigation or complaints directed at Saps, they are encouraged to approach police management with the information so that the allegations can be probed,” he said.

LEAP officer killed day later in taxi strike violence

A day after Teoh was killed, a 32-year-old Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (LEAP) officer, Zanikhaya Kwinana, also sustained fatal gunshot wounds to the head when the vehicle he was travelling in, came under heavy fire in Nyanga while on a crime prevention patrol for any taxi strike-related incidents.

ALSO READ: Taxi strike updates and THAT video of Cape Town cops assaulting driver [WATCH]

US tourist shot and robbed in Nyanga

Three months after Teoh’s death, yet another tourist, Walter Fischel, an American citizen, was shot in the face and robbed in Nyanga while driving from Cape Town International Airport.

Nyanga is situated next to what has become known as the notorious “Hell Run”, a crime-ridden stretch of the N2 highway which includes the route to and from Cape Town International Airport.

The navigation system in Fischel’s rental car directed him to go through the township when he was approached by four men while he was stuck in traffic.

Although the 55-year-old tourist from Connecticut reportedly put up a fight, he was shot in the face and the gunmen fled in the rental car, along with passport, all his money and phone.

Fischel, who made his recovery at the Rondebosch Medical Centre, has launched a crowdfunding campaign to be able to leave the country and return to his family in Connecticut, according to News24.

Google Maps and Waze to stop directing travellers through Nyanga

Google South Africa director Alistair Mokoena said on Monday Google has begun removing the route into Nyanga from its system.

“From a Google perspective, we have been in conversation with the Department of Tourism, the City of Cape Town, Cape Town Tourism and other role-players to figure out best the safety and security method we can introduce to address incidents such as the recent happenings,” Mokoena said.

The announcement was made at the signing ceremony of an agreement between Google and the National Tourism Ministry in Cape Town to promote South Africa as a top tourist destination and to provide digital training and support to the sector.

He stated that the multi-stakeholder group had decided on several security measures they could use through the collaborative process, such as increasing the visibility of warning signs in and around problematic areas, as well as warnings and messaging in campaigns aimed at tourists.

“In locations such as the area around the Nyanga, around the airport and intersection, we have been receiving reports of these attacks, so what we have come up with as Google or Waze is that we have categorised some of these routes as high-risk routes or crime hotspots.

“Based on that data, we are working with our engineering teams to no longer recommend those routes and so instead we will recommend other routes, but nobody can predict where crime is going to come from. We might assume that staying on the N2 is the safest thing to do until crime starts to move on to the N2,” Makoena continued.

“So for now, we want to make sure crime-prone routes do not come up as recommendations, and for that, we take guidance from the authorities like the City, who as I mentioned earlier, are hosting initiatives to address these incidents.”