Cape Town - An 18-year-old University of Cape Town (UCT) student has spoken out about the terror she experienced when a man violently attacked her last Sunday, January 29.
On January 29 the first year Bachelor of Arts student, Rebecca Liv Shain, was walking at about 3pm in Lover’s Lane in Rondebosch close to the Main Road when she noticed a man walking towards her.
She greeted him, but started to feel afraid when she realised he had turned around and was following her.
Shain said she noticed he was sending voice messages to his accomplice who was standing at the open door of his parked blue car further up the road.
The young woman quickened her pace and by this time was on the corner of Grotto Road, just one road up from the Main Road, a usually busy area.
“He then overtook me on the road. There were no people, no cars. He suddenly steps towards me and takes out a gun. He either said don’t scream or don’t move. I started screaming my lungs out. He grabbed my right arm, I think he grabbed my bag and I ducked. He then hit me continuously with the gun on the back of my head,” she said.
Shain said she slipped in and out of consciousness, but her screaming prompted residents to come to her rescue.
At that point, her attacker and his accomplice sped off in the blue car.
“Blood was pouring off my head, and my dress was covered in blood.”
The student was rushed to Kingsbury hospital, where she received eight stitches to the back of her head.
Rondebosch police are investigating the case.
Shain said police officers told her three other similar incidents had happened in Claremont and Rondebosch in recent weeks and they believe the two men who attacked her could be operating in the area.
Read: Safety fears mount after new UCT attack
Shain described her attacker as tall and skinny – the exact same description another UCT student gave of men who attacked him on Monday, February 8.
UCT medical student Sebastian Sheidereiter, 22, was walking to his car in Falmouth Road near the medical campus, when two men robbed him at gunpoint.
The men demanded his cellphone and wallet. They ran off with his backpack which contained an iPad, his student card, and study notes. They also ripped off the gold necklace Scheidereiter was wearing around his neck.
The medical student was ordered to crouch down as his attackers fled the scene.
In a disturbing twist, the shocked student started walking back to campus when a young woman ran towards him crying.
“She had just been hijacked and the incidents were two minutes apart. In her case, there were four people. She was driving and saw a car in front of her covered in grafitti. Two men jumped out of the car and ordered her out of her car at gunpoint,”.
Also a UCT student, the woman joined Scheidereider to report the attacks to campus security. In her case, Scheidereiter said the hijacking was in the road parallel to Falmouth Road.
The university’s spokesperson Kylie Hatton told ANA on Monday night that the university has noticed a disturbing increase in crime around UCT.
Police are already investigating a suspected serial rapist after at least three women were attacked and raped near Rhodes Memorial, close to UCT, in recent weeks.
Shain told ANA she has been receiving counselling at UCT, but in the days after the attack suffered from insomnia, nightmares and flashbacks.
“I am terrified to walk by myself and it shouldn’t be like this. I should be able to meet my boyfriend down the road without something like this happening. You fear for your own life just by stepping outside your house. I was so angry, I felt like I want to leave the country. Why do we live this way? I am not going to be scared in my country. I can’t let it get to me, but at the same time it does,” she said.
African News Agency