'Say goodbye to the kids'

Hours before he was gunned down in an ambush, an East Rand taxi owner told his wife to say goodbye to his children for him.

"I begged him not to go, but he wouldn't listen," wept Eunice Melaphi. "All he would say was that he didn't think he was coming home, that he loved me, that I must say goodbye to our children."

Her husband, Herbert Melaphi, and his Reiger Park Taxi Association colleagues Johannes Hlatshwayo and Willie Mostamai were shot dead at the association's rank in Windmill Park, Boksburg yesterday morning.

A passenger was also shot dead, and another died when she was run over by a taxi. Two other passengers were critically injured.

The shooting was allegedly linked to a two-year feud between the Reiger Park Taxi Association and the neighbouring Vosloorus Taxi Association.

The Reiger Park Taxi Association was granted a court order last year giving it permission to operate on several contested routes, but had been unable to do so because of alleged threats.

Three Mamelodi Taxi Association members have been shot dead in the last three weeks, also because of an apparent route dispute.

Yesterday's shooting happened opposite a creche as children queued for transport .

Witnesses said gunmen in several cars, all wearing suits, surrounded the owners.

Rose Jacobs, who was in her garden opposite the rank, heard her niece screaming for help.

"As I ran to the [garden] gate, people were climbing over my wall.

"I opened the gate and I saw the gunmen. They were chasing the people. As the men ran, others hiding next to the railway line stood up and started shooting.

"They had big guns. They shot everywhere. Bullets were hitting my wall.

"They were like the Mafia. They walked up to the bodies and shot them again . I think in the head, then walked back to their cars and drove off slowly."

Stanley Madonsela was one of the two passengers killed.

"This wasn't meant to happen. His girlfriend is pregnant. He was meant to grow old with his child, not die in a field," his niece Palesa Zwane said.

Talbert Foster, the Reiger Park Taxi Association chairman, said that on Wednesday he had requested police patrols in the area for yesterday.

"I told different police stations we were going to start operating. I was promised help, but none came. They left us to die."

He said the conflict was over lucrative routes.

"Gauteng government officials knew this was coming. We warned them, but they did nothing.

"Now that people are dead they want to help. Why not before the bloodshed."

Foster said six of their members had been killed in the last year.

Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said a patrol van was in the area at the time of the shooting, but by the time it arrived at the rank the gunmen had fled.