By Sifiso Nhlabatsi | 2019-07-05

A 19-year-old girl has spent five days in hospital after she was hit by a stray bullet during the Epic Gig mayhem, which ensued on Sunday at Mavuso Trade Centre.

The Form 4 pupil from one of the local schools around the Manzini region had attended the gig with her friends in the hope to see well-known artists, including Kwesta and Mlindo The Vocalist, among others.

Things turned nasty at the Epic Gig when hooligans started engaging in barbaric behaviour, as they threw bottles to the stage and vandalising property after lights went off on stage due to the pushing and shoving that occurred when Mlindo performed.

This forced police to call for the riot squad, which came fully armed with riot gear, including teargas canisters and rubber bullets.

Police tried to disperse the crowd using rubber bullets and teargas canisters. At that moment some people were injured by the rubber bullets.

For Ntobeko* it was a different story altogether. Ntobeko was hit by a bullet, however, it has since emerged that the pupil was not hit by a rubber bullet but by a live round of ammunition.

This has forced Ntobeko to spend five days in hospital, as local doctors have been unable to extract the bullet from her body, claiming that it is too close to the heart, hence the pupil had to be transferred to a South African hospital so that she could be attended to by specialists.

Narrating her ordeal yesterday at RFM hospital, Ntobeko said she was just preparing to leave as the mayhem began at Mavuso.

Bang

She said she was standing next to one of the halls at Mavuso when she heard a loud bang from a gunshot as police dispersed the rowdy crowd.

Ntobeko said she suddenly felt her body becoming numb and she fell to the ground. She said at that moment, her friends who were next to her thought she was frightened by the gunshot and they tried to raise her to her feet. To their shock, her friends saw that she was bleeding from the back.

And it was soon discovered that she had been shot as there was a bullet wound on her shoulder. Ntobeko said she couldn’t feel her feet and her clothes were soaked in blood. She said she was then transported by her friends to hospital.

She said she had spent the past five days in hospital languishing in pain. Friends of Ntobeko and her teachers have paid her a visit at RFM hospital and wished her a speedy recovery.

Ntobeko was expected to leave for South Africa, where she will undergo an operation to have the bullet lodged in her body removed.

Phalala Fund has since come to the rescue of the girl, as it will pay some of her medical fees.

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