Family shaken after hijackers hold women‚ baby at gunpoint

A Durban family was left shaken after hijackers held two women and an 11-month-old baby at gunpoint before making off with a Mercedes Benz.

The incident played out outside the Kistnasamy's Parthab Road home in Avoca‚ north of Durban‚ on Monday night.

Rodger Kistnasamy said that his wife‚ daughter-in-law and her 11-month-old baby were leaving home to go shopping shortly after 6pm.

“As my wife was reversing out of the gate she saw a car coming up the road so she stopped‚ thinking it would go past. This car turned out to be the hijackers‚” he said.

He said they stopped behind his wife’s car. Three men surrounded the vehicle and demanded that she get out.

“They were armed and they told my wife they wanted the car and the handbags. As she got out they even made her take off her jewellery‚” he added.

He said that his daughter-in-law had taken the baby in her arms and the women had stood in the driveway as the hijackers fled in her Mercedes.

“This story about them [the hijackers] taking the baby away and then coming back is not true … it’s nonsense‚” he said.

A security company had earlier reported that four armed men had hijacked the car‚ “not realising that they had a passenger on board”. The company spokesman said the hijackers had turned around to return the infant.

Police spokeswoman Colonel Thembeka Mbele said: “At gunpoint they forced her out and she took her baby. They fled the scene in a complainant’s white Mercedes Benz.”

The car was later recovered.