Scenes of quiet desolation after mosque killings

15 June 2018 - 07:00 By Aron Hyman
subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now
Zainab Bassa (red scarf), wife of Malmesbury mosque victim Ismail Bassa, 74, during prayers at her home on June 14 2018.
Zainab Bassa (red scarf), wife of Malmesbury mosque victim Ismail Bassa, 74, during prayers at her home on June 14 2018.
Image: Esa Alexander

The man who killed two people in a mosque in Malmesbury outside Cape Town jumped onto a police bakkie and stabbed the windshield with a hunting dagger before police shot and killed him.

On Thursday morning‚ three blue shotgun shells lay in the mud on an open field in the Swartland town; and a few metres further on a man lay in the mud‚ his body being battered with icy rain from an Atlantic storm.

The man is believed to be a Somali and the Hawks have taken over the case. They were taking statements from members of Cape Town’s Somali community in a church next to the field‚ where forensic investigators were working on the scene.

One of the men told Times Select he was a family member of the attacker and that he did not know what the man was doing in Malmesbury as he was supposed to be in “hospital” somewhere in Cape Town.

At least two people were stabbed to death and others injured in a “brutal” attack at a mosque in Cape Town in the early hours of Thursday morning. Here's what we know so far.

subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now