The distraught father lies on the narrow, single bed and points to two small bullet holes in the wall of his house.

This is stark evidence of a moment that shattered his family's life forever.

Devon Africa's four-year-old son Davin was shot dead in February, caught in the crossfire of a shoot-out between criminals.

He was a victim of the gang warfare that has plagued the Cape Flats, the townships around Cape Town - a legacy of apartheid, when the non-white population was forcibly moved from the centre of the wealthy city to the under-resourced outskirts.

"This is the bullet hole here," he says. "This is where he slept."