Maria Chaka called out her grandchild, Karabo, to come inside the yard as bullets were flying in the street, and moments later, the teenage boy lay on the ground with a bullet wound to his head. 

Less than an hour later, Karabo was confirmed dead by nurses at Eldorado Park Clinic. 

Karabo, 16, was hit by a stray bullet during a service delivery protest in Slovo Park near Soweto on Monday. The community had blocked the N12 with boulders and log trees, prompting police to disperse the crowd. Rubber bullets were fired, while residents retaliated by throwing rocks.

Karabo was Sylvia Chaka's second born of five children.

“Karabo told me he was going to go to his cousins to watch a movie just down the street,” Chaka recalled with tears in her eyes. 

“During this time, the police and some of the residents were clashing, stones and bullets were being fired. He left the house for only a few minutes before his grandmother told him to get inside and not to come out but before he could respond he was hit in the head by a bullet,” Chaka recalled.

She said that she was called by neighbours that her son had been hit but was confused at the time.  

"They kept saying to me 'your son was shot', your son was shot' and I didn't think they meant me, but they kept pointing at me and pulled me to the area. When I got there, I found one of his friends, shaking him, trying to lift him off the floor,” she said.  

“I couldn’t believe it. His friend kept telling me, ‘Karabo isn’t waking up’. When I asked him what happened, they told me he was shot by the police but I told them my son was not part of the protest, he was nowhere near the police,” added Chaka.  

Karabo was rushed to the clinic.  

“We didn't wait long, maybe eight or nine minutes later they came out and the nurse told me to come to the back [the wards] where they had taken him. The nurse looked at me and told me to say my goodbyes because there was nothing they could do and that he was gone. I couldn't say anything," said Chaka with tears in her eyes.  

While crying, Chaka shook her head, telling Sowetan that Karabo was well-known in the community.

“Karabo was a kind boy, a sweet boy trusted by everyone. Whenever you needed to get something or send someone to buy groceries, Karabo was the one you sent,” said Chaka.  

Chaka said Karabo spoke of his death just a week ago, following his birthday on July 27.

“I didn’t believe him. Karabo told me that he was going to die just a few days after his birthday. One of the days, we were sitting and drinking tea in the morning, the kettle tipped over and hot water spilled onto his leg burning him, he started crying and said, ‘Mama, I’m going to die.’ and I told him he’s speaking nonsense,” she recalled. 

Chaka said that it hurt to think of memories about his child. 

“I don't want to remember him, I want him here, he’s my child, my boy,” grieved Chaka. 

Karabo's uncle, Jafta Chaka, said no one had come to apologise to the family. 

The family said Karabo would be buried next week in Kroonstad, Free State.

Ipid spokesperson, Ronnie Raburabu, said the cause of Karabo’s death was being investigated.

“We don’t know much because we were not notified about it. It is only now that the police themselves said they don’t know about it and those are the ones that were at the scene. What we are trying to follow up is to check whether the death has anything to do with the police and that might take some time for us to verify,” he said.

Mashalek@sowetan.co.za