Moegamat Faizel Challis (12) who was described as “a joy” and the “life of the party” had his life cut tragically short when he was hit in the head by a stray bullet.
Faizel’s uncle, Jodian Challis, said the boy was still spreading joy moments before he was hit on Thursday 2 October.
Challis, who was at work when his nephew was hit, said his sister told him everything later that evening.
He said Faizel had already collected his party packet from the neighbours who were doing good deeds on the anniversary of their loved one’s death. He returned home to fetch his little brother and sister who are seven and five years old.
“My sister told him to wait while she put on her shoes,” Challis said, adding that the children were too impatient to wait and left.
“My sister heard three gun shots,” Challis said. “She ran out because she knew they had just left the house. The two little ones came running to her saying: “Mammie, mammie! Dis Faizel!”
Challis said the gunmen fired four shots, one which hit Faizel and another which hit another man.
“The other man that was shot was with the man that they came to shoot,” he said. “The one gang member was looking for another gang member and they came around the corner and just started opening fire. They fired four shots and the last bullet hit Faizel’s skull.”
Faizel was rushed to hospital where he was put in an induced coma.
“The doctors said they were afraid the bullet had reached an artery,” Challis said. “They wanted to remove the bullet but they weren’t sure if it would paralyse him.”
Challis said doctors opted to keep Faizel in an induced coma on life support while they drained the fluid on his brain.
At first, Faizel seemed to be doing better but then at about noon on Friday his condition deteriorated, Challis said.
“It was very traumatic,” Challis said, explaining that 10 years ago his mother was also hospitalised and had started improving before her health deteriorated suddenly and she died. “Early this afternoon, after a round of tests, Faizel was declared brain dead,” Challis said.
Broken
“I never saw my sister so broken. We have been through hell and back as a family,” he said, explaining that the siblings had had a very “difficult” upbringing. “But today broke me. Just to see the hurt in my sister’s eyes, pleading for this lifeless body to come back. It was more traumatic than when my mother passed away.”
Challis is disheartened that witnesses have not come forward.
“Moira Street is very small,” he said. “If you look out of your kitchen window, you can see the whole street but everyone saw nothing. No one wants to speak up.”
He said the silence is why victims don’t find justice.
“I want my sister to find peace. I don’t know how any mother can recover from this?”
Despite the silence from witnesses, Challis said the family has had a lot of support and he was surprised by how many people knew his nephew.
“Faizel was such an adventurous boy. He was the joy in the house,” he said, adding that his nephew would do “silly dances” to diffuse conflict and that he was always “making jokes”.
“People who know me have been calling all day and when I ask, ‘how do you know my nephew?’ they say, ‘he helped me in the garden’ or ‘he was always at the youth’. For a 12-year-old to have had that much impact …” he said, breaking off with emotion.
Mitchell’s Plain police commander Brig Brian Muller said a manhunt is underway to find the shooter.
“We’ve spoken to the boy’s father who said he evicted him two weeks ago,” he said of the shooter. “We are still looking for him.”
Faizel will be buried this evening (Monday 6 October).
