Shocked motorists watched as the gun battle unfolded. Shocked motorists watched as the gun battle unfolded.
Kimberley - “Please Allah, don’t let me die. I can’t die today.” This was the frantic prayers of a young woman as she watched a gun-wielding man shoot blindly in all directions, while police returned the gun-fire.
The traumatised woman said she pulled up at the intersection of Long Street and Bultfontein Road and stopped at the red robot. “I was focused on the robot because I was waiting for it to change when I suddenly heard what I thought was a car back-firing."
“I looked up and I realised that it was gunshots.” She watched as a grey-haired man fell to the ground in the street next to the robot."
“Only then did I realise that the other man was holding a gun, which he was firing in all directions. I was so afraid. He was shooting everywhere - my first instinct was that I had to get out of there, but every time a car moved, the gunman turned to face them and pointed his gun in that direction."
“I was scared that if I moved he would shoot me. The robots kept changing, but no-one was moving and there were just shots being fired in all directions. I just kept praying - I didn’t want to die.”
She said she hid behind the steering wheel for protection.
“I think that there was a police van which was also caught up in the traffic because suddenly there were a lot of policemen on the scene, and they were firing at the gunman, who was trying to seek cover behind a truck. I think he must have had an automatic weapon because the shots just kept coming.”
The woman said that the gunman suddenly fell to the ground. “I don’t know if he had been shot - I just saw him lying on the ground and all the cars then started moving.”
Shaking and tearful, the woman said that she didn’t know if any of the motorists or occupants in the other cars had been shot.
“I only saw the two men on the ground but I was too scared to look any further. It is the first time I have ever witnessed a shooting - or even heard a gun being fired.”