Canaan Mdletshe

Canaan Mdletshe

Panic erupted in a minibus taxi yesterday and passengers fled in all directions when a man shot dead his former girlfriend in cold blood before turning the gun on himself and committing suicide.

The taxi was travelling from Willowfontein to Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal.

A fellow passenger, who did not want to be named, said the dead woman, Thabisile Mchunu, 30, her younger sister and Mchunu's former boyfriend boarded the taxi together, but sat in different seats.

The passenger said: "I was sitting behind the driver when the three boarded the taxi.

"The older woman sat behind me, next to another person, and the man sat in the third seat."

"Everything was fine and then, suddenly, bang, bang. I thought a tyre had burst.

"Then there was screaming and blood everywhere, and we all began screaming," she said.

Captain Joshua Gwala, a police spokesman, said: "On arrival at the scene police found two bodies, those of a man and a woman, lying inside a minibus taxi that was parked in the road.

"Both bodies had gunshot wounds."

Gwala said another unidentified male passenger was wounded in the arm and taken to Edendale Hospital.

He said the man was in a stable condition.

The owner of the taxi , who was apparently among the first people to arrive on the scene of the shooting, refused to comment on the tragedy.

Police recovered a 9mm pistol and three spent shell casings at the scene.

Police are investigating the incident.