By Lynnette Johns
Enough is enough - the community must take a stand.
This was the collective call of speakers at the double funeral of Bianca Gosh, 18, and Amelia Jansen, 17, in Elsies River on Thursday.
Thousands of people were at the Adriaanse Community Centre in Elsies River to pay their last respects to the two teenagers who were later buried side by side at the Belhar cemetery.
The bodies of Bianca and Amelia were found on a field in Connaught Road, Uitsig last Friday. They had been raped and shot in the head execution style.
The murders shocked the community, already hit by large-scale unemployment, crime, gangsterism and drugs.
Amelia and Bianca were described as teenagers with burning ambitions to succeed, a duo who went to school at night and during the holidays for extra lessons; girls who were committed to making a difference in their community.
Their school described them as "shining jewels" who would have matriculated this year.
On Thursday thousands of people were mourning their untimely death. Their white coffins were adorned with white flowers.
Speakers at the funeral included provincial African National Congress leader Ebrahim Rasool, head of education in the province Brian O' Connell, Tygerberg deputy mayor David Vollenhoven, police East metropole area commissioner Kosie Jafta, Ravensmead community police forum chairperson Pedro Arendse, Gaynor Wasser of the Western Cape Anti-Crime Forum and the girls' class teacher Spencer Tonkin.
Speakers called on the community to take a stand against the evils plaguing the area and for political parties and religious organisations to work together.
Calling for more police resources to be ploughed into the area, Rasool said the story of the Cape Flats should be rewritten so that all areas enjoyed equal policing. "Unless we do this the other Amelias and Biancas will never reach the Promised Land (a better life)."
O' Connell said he had wept when he learnt of their murders.
"Has apartheid hurt us so badly that we have so little respect for life?" he asked. He said the community would betray Bianca and Amelia if similar killings were allowed to happen again.
Vollenhoven called on churches to put aside their differences and work and pray together for change, so that "their deaths may not be in vain".
Pedro said all the praying in the world would be worth nothing if the community did not stand up and do something themselves.
Dawood Adam of the Investigative Directorate on Organised Crime urged the community to hand over perpetrators of crime to the authorities.
Uitsig High teacher Spencer Tonkin said both girls had had a burning ambition to succeed.
"If we had 50 or 60 pupils like them in a class it would be a pleasure to teach," he said.