A Cape Town woman may lose her sight after two men threw acid in her face and eyes outside her home.
|||A Cape Town woman is being treated at Groote Schuur Hospital after two men threw acid in her face and eyes outside her Lavender Hill home.
Police have confirmed the attack and are investigating a case of grievous bodily harm.
Family members of Joan Everson, 61, fear her sight may never be fully restored after her eyes were badly damaged in the Friday afternoon attack. It is believed Everson was targeted for her anti-gang stance.
“She was standing outside talking to one of the neighbours when these two guys came running past and threw the stuff in her face,” said Everson’s daughter, Samantha, 32, who was at home at the time. “She was screaming and trying to take her top off because she couldn’t take the pain.
“One of the neighbours ran to call for an ambulance and the police, which then transported her to Victoria Hospital. She was transferred to Groote Schuur Hospital after that,” she said.
Everson was one of the first women in Lavender Hill to plant a peace garden as a symbol of the community’s stand against gang violence.
Two months ago the tuck shop she owns, which is located opposite her home, was gutted after a petrol bomb was apparently hurled at it.
“We don’t know why they would do this to my mother. She hasn’t done anything to anyone,” said Samantha.
“She just stayed in her shop and did her garden. She loved being in the garden.
“We have lived in the same flat for the past 39 years and nothing like this has happened. My dad isn’t taking it well.
“When he came here on Monday he just started crying because every year we used to have Christmas lunch together,” Samantha said, referring to the fact that her mother had to spend Christmas in hospital.
“If they could do it once, they could do it again. My sister is even thinking of taking her out of Lavender Hill.”
A family friend, Carol Fortune, who was with Everson at the time of the incident, said: “She was screaming so much, we helped her take her top off quickly so that the rest of her body didn’t burn.
“She didn’t look like herself. Her eyes were white and around it was red and swollen. People say the gangsters here think she is the one that keeps phoning the police to raid the homes.”
Other neighbours agreed that Everson was targeted by gangs for being regarded as the area’s whistle-blower.
Steenberg police spokesperson Hermanus van Dyk said the reason for the attack was still unknown and no arrests had been made yet.
The incident came three months after a woman, originally from Zimbabwe, was badly burnt in an acid attack soon after boarding a taxi in Sea Point on August 30. The motive for that attack is still unclear. - Cape Times
barbara.maregele@inl.co.za