WATCH: Mother pleads for help to give her son a dignified funeral after tragic shooting
With tears building in her eyes, Megan Appolis pleaded for help to raise R7 000, just enough to give her son, Aiden Petersen, a dignified funeral.
Petersen, only 22 years old, was gunned down over the weekend in Kensington while visiting his girlfriend. His mother sits surrounded by disbelief and heartbreak, her pain made heavier by the financial hardship that now stands between her and a proper farewell.
“He was my first born,” Appolis whispered softly, her voice almost breaking.
“I carried him for nine months, and it was such a difficult birth. But that day’s pain I would choose over the day they called me to come identify my boy – that pain, it broke me…”
Aiden had moved in with his father in Kensington to help take care of him after he fell ill, a sign of the responsibility and kindness that his mother said defined him.
Appolis described Petersen as “a mommy’s boy”, always checking in, always making sure she knew where he was.
“And those were also his last words to me,” she recalled.
“He told me he was proud of himself, that he was going to start an orientation programme. He told me all about it, and just before I could put the phone down, he said, ‘I love you.’”
Moments like that replay in her mind now.
“All I want to know is why,” Appolis said with tears swelling in her eyes. “Why did you kill my son? Why did you have to? He wasn’t a gangster. He wasn’t involved with bad people. He was humble, friendly, and always greeted everyone. Why did you kill him the way you did?”
When she arrived at the scene, she saw her boy’s bullet-ridden body lying in the street. “If I could only tell him how he saved my life, just by being my son.”
Her grief now stretches beyond loss to the cruel struggle of raising funds for his burial. Friends have started a small fundraising drive, but the R7 000 needed feels painfully out of reach for a mother who just wants to say goodbye with dignity.
“These shooting incidents, they (the government) need to make a plan with it because it’s going bad in each area, ons kinders gaan dood, innocent children, innocent babies, it’s not fair. As a mother who lost her first born, how must I feel? I have to go through this pain.”
According to data compiled by Fight Against Crime South Africa (FACSA), between 16 and 26 October 2025, Cape Town recorded a staggering 225 crime incidents, including 168 shootings that left 56 people dead.
Anyone who wants to help Appolis can contact her on: 065 535 3145.
tracy-lynn.ruiters@inl.co.za