‘All of us whose family members died in the riots had a raw deal’

Shireen Mentoor of Gelvandale, was widowed at the age of 24 and left to raise  three young boys when her husband Christopher Seale died after being shot by police in Schauderville while he waited to go to work on August 10 1990.

Their youngest son Leroy was only six-months-old at the time, the eldest son, Gerard was five and Jeremy was eighteen months old.

The 25-year-old Seale worked at Pilkington Shatterprufe at the time of his death, and he was working the night shift at the time of the uprising.

According to Mentoor,  now 54, he waited for a lift at his brother’s house on the corners of Highfield and Couldridge Roads in Schauderville.

“He sat on the stoep with his feet on the outside of the yard. Somebody threw stones at the Casspir  and they just shot blindly and the guy fell in front of him [Christopher].

Mentoor’s sister-in-law called to tell her that Seale had been shot, but that he was alright.

She says, however, that she knew he was not alright.

“I knew that he died. I could feel it in me because I woke up that night, and I came to knock on the door by my granny, and I said ‘Ma, something happened to Chris’.”

“And at the same time, the phone call came to say that he was shot.”

Mentoor says although she won her court case against the police for wrongful death, the family was never compensated.

“They couldn’t say our family members were looting because there were no shops to loot.

“Where he was shot wasn’t even on the side where the shops were because the houses are on one side and the shops on the other side.

“All the magistrate told me was ‘Mrs Seale, you are one of the fortunate ladies that had an eyewitness that could give the colour of the Casspir and could give the number plate of the Casspir. And none of those policemen or whoever was in the Casspir were brought to book.”

Mentoor said she and Seale had been a normal couple who had plans to buy a house and plans for their children’s future.

“Because of the riots, my children did not get what they deserved.

“My children deserved much more than what they got with me being alone.

“He [Seale] did not touch his money unless he came home and gave it to me.

“I was a spoilt brat when my husband was alive but he always told me ‘Shireen, you’ll never struggle for as long as you live, and you use your money wisely.

“And 30 years later I must really say his words came true. He always told me to look after my grandparents because they raised me well.”

Mentoor says Seale always told her that his children were his whole life. Sadly, Gerard died in a car accident seven years after his father’s death.

“I worked in a shoe factory. Then I came home, baked cakes and went to sell it at work.

“Then I would buy clothing and went to sell it at work so that my children could have better.

“At the end of the day, all of us whose family members died in the riots had a raw deal. And nobody even came to find out whether or not we were okay.”

She still receives Seale’s salary and she uses it for baking and sowing to sustain herself.

The government has not done anything for those whose loved ones were killed during the uprising, she says.

She added that the families of the victims raised funds for the tombstone at the Paapenkuils Cemetery to honour the lives of the victims though not all of them were buried at that specific burial site.

“We didn’t get anything, and we were supposed to be compensated, but we understand that it was apartheid.

“But I believe the current government is in control of the country for long enough to have done something for us.

“I’m not talking about my family alone. Some children became gangsters, some became wash-outs, became street children because their families were not fortunate like my family.”

- HeraldLIVE