Two separate mass shootings near South Africa’s two biggest cities killed at least 27 people, as the country grapples with one of the world’s highest murder rates amid investigations into corruption and criminality within the police.
The South African police service said on Sunday that 17 people were killed on Saturday night when eight suspects armed with AK-47 assault rifles and pistols opened fire at a bar in Wedela township, about 50 miles south-west of central Johannesburg. At least 15 other people sustained gunshot injuries in that attack, police said.
In a separate statement, police said 10 people had been killed in a mass shooting at an entertainment venue selling grilled meat, known as shisanyama, in Lwandle, near Cape Town. Another 11 people were wounded in that shooting. Police said they were searching for multiple suspects, without giving an exact number.
The two attacks happened days after a mass shooting by three gunmen at a house party near the east-coast city of Durban killed 11 people, including a pregnant woman.
No arrests had been made in the two latest mass shootings, police said.
South Africa has struggled with high rates of violent crime for years, but the series of mass shootings this week were shocking even to a country used to some of the highest violent crime rates in the world.
“This cannot go on like this,” South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, told local TV news channels. “This is the level of criminality that we must bring down, and our security forces are now going to continue pulling out all stops.”
Police in the province of Gauteng said on Sunday morning they had launched a manhunt for the unidentified eight suspects in the Johannesburg tavern shooting, with no arrests yet made.
“It is alleged that patrons were drinking inside and outside the tavern when the suspects arrived and opened fire on those outside,” a police spokesperson, Capt Tintswalo Sibeko, said in a statement.
“The suspects then entered the tavern and continued shooting at patrons inside. The suspects were reportedly armed with AK-47 rifles and pistols. They allegedly searched some patrons and took their cellphones before fleeing the scene in two unidentified motor vehicles. Two vehicles were also set alight during the incident.”
While many local residents did not want to speak about the shooting, one said that illegal goldminers were active in the area. Gauteng province’s police commissioner, Tommy Mthombeni, told reporters that one of their lines of inquiry was that the shooting was part of a “turf war in terms of illegal mining”.
Illegal miners, known as zama zamas, which means “to take a chance” in Zulu, are usually part of powerful gangs, with multiple mass shooting incidents around Johannesburg blamed on them in recent years.
Mthombeni also said Saturday’s shooting could have been retaliation for another at the same tavern about a month ago.
Western Cape police said they had set up a team led by serious violent crime detectives to investigate the Cape Town shooting, in which the gunmen entered the shinsanyama venue at about 1.46am on Sunday and starting shooting at customers.
“Five individuals died on the scene while five others succumbed to injuries sustained after being transported to medical facilities,” the statement said. “Eleven others are receiving medical treatment for injuries sustained … Detectives are hard at work in search of the perpetrators of the shooting incident, with no arrests effected yet. The identities of the deceased persons will be released once their next of kin are informed.”
A police official said that “business jealousy might have been the issue”, citing reports that people had been buying cheaper alcohol elsewhere and then bringing it to the venue to drink.
South Africans are already reeling after the discovery of numerous women’s bodies near Johannesburg’s airport since July, most of which were found in the last few weeks. The killings led to renewed anger about high rates of gender-based violence in the country, and have piled pressure on police and politicians to do more about it.
Alongside this, the Madlanga commission judicial inquiry has been examining allegations of corruption and criminality within the police in televised hearings for the past year.
South Africa had a murder rate of almost 40 per 100,000 people in 2024, according to the UN office on drugs and crime. That was the ninth-highest in the world that year, with only Caribbean countries higher.
In the 12 months to 30 June, more than 22,700 people were murdered in South Africa, according to police data.
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
