–<\/p>\n
South Africa national team captain Senzo Meyiwa was shot and killed on Sunday trying to protect his girlfriend during a robbery at her home near Johannesburg, officials said on Monday.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old Orlando Pirates goalkeeper suffered a single shot through the chest during the incident at the home of Kelly Khumalo, a local actress and singer.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo guys entered the house and demanded cellphones, money and other valuables,\u201d provincial Community Safety MEC Sizakele Nkosi-Malubane told reporters at the scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cSenzo tried to protect Kelly because one of the men had a gun pointed towards her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police said two men entered Khumalo\u2019s house in Vosloorus at about 8pm. A third waited outside the house and all three fled immediately after the shooting.<\/p>\n
Meyiwa was declared dead on arrival at hospital, the police added.<\/p>\n
South Africa\u2019s national team coach Ephraim Mashaba comforted several of Meyiwa\u2019s teammates who were at the hospital not long after the shooting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can assure all South Africans that we will do all we can to bring Meyiwa’s killers (to) book,\u201d the South African Police Service said on its Twitter account. Police are offering a R150,000 reward for information that can lead to an arrest.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old captained South Africa in their last four matches in the African Nations Cup qualifiers without conceding a goal and played on Saturday when his club advanced to the semi-finals of the Telkom Knockout.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a sad loss which ever way you look at it \u2013 to Senzo\u2019s family, his extended family, Orlando Pirates and to the nation,\u201d Pirates chairman Irvin Khoza said in a statement.<\/p>\n
News of the shooting prompted widespread sympathy on social media and condemnation of South Africa\u2019s rampant gun violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you kill someone for a cellphone?\u201d tweeted national team mate Tsepo Masilela.<\/p>\n
Belgian-based goalkeeper Darren Keet, who had been Meyiwa\u2019s understudy over the last four internationals, tweeted: \u201cWhen does it STOP South Africa?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are deeply saddened but shouldn\u2019t we be angry too? When is it going to be stopped? Crime won\u2019t stop by itself, we need leadership,\u201d added South Africa\u2019s Premier Soccer League general manager Derek Blanckensee.<\/p>\n
More than 17,000 people were murdered in South Africa between April 2013 and March 2014, an increase of about 800 over the previous year, according to police figures.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
By: Gary Al-Smith\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
– South Africa national team captain Senzo Meyiwa was shot and killed on Sunday trying to protect his girlfriend during a robbery at her home near Johannesburg, officials said on Monday. The 27-year-old Orlando Pirates goalkeeper suffered a single shot through the chest during the incident at the home of Kelly Khumalo, a local actress […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":59834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-59833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/59834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}