JOHANNESBURG — At least 27 people have been killed in two separate mass shootings in South Africa, hours apart, in the latest incidents of gun violence to hit the country.
Seventeen people were killed when eight gunmen reportedly stormed a bar near Johannesburg on Saturday evening, while 15 others were injured.
In a separate incident in the early hours of Sunday, 10 people were killed outside an entertainment venue in a township near Cape Town, with 11 others injured.
Police had not established a definitive motive for either attack as of Sunday morning, while no arrests had been reported.
In Johannesburg, the gunmen opened fire on customers outside the bar before continuing the attack inside. They also reportedly set two vehicles on fire before fleeing the scene.
Police said 13 men and four women were killed in the attack.
Gauteng Police Commissioner, Lt. Gen. Tommy Mthombeni, said nationals of Ethiopia and Lesotho were among those caught up in the shooting, although the majority of the victims were South African.
He said police believed robbery could have been the motive, as personal belongings were reportedly taken, but added that investigators had not ruled out turf wars involving illegal mining groups.
Illegal mining in abandoned shafts and dump sites remains a persistent problem in South Africa, with authorities saying undocumented migrants are often recruited by organised crime gangs to carry out the activities.
Earlier, the Deputy Provincial Police Commissioner, Maj. Gen. Fred Kekana, told news agency AFP that the Johannesburg attack could have been retaliation for an incident last month in which one person was killed and another injured.
Kekana said police had clear images of some of the suspects and, in some cases, their names.
In Cape Town, five victims died at the scene, while another five died after being taken to hospital.
The shootings came days after 11 people were killed in Durban when gunmen reportedly stormed a house in the KwaMakhutha township.
South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world and has struggled for years with gun violence, much of it linked to organised crime and gang activity.
About 60 murders are recorded daily in the country, which has a population of about 62 million, according to official figures cited in reports on the country’s security situation.
The recent spate of mass shootings has heightened concerns over the spread of organised gun violence, with authorities linking some attacks to turf wars between gangs involved in drug trafficking and illegal mining.
In February, President Cyril Ramaphosa described organised crime as “the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development”.
Earlier this year, the military was deployed alongside the police in areas with some of the country’s highest murder rates as part of efforts to curb armed violence.
Meanwhile, police in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg, said on Saturday that they had found the body of a 10th woman in an area where a series of similar deaths had been recorded.
Local police said they could not rule out the possibility that a serial killer was operating in the area.
BBC
The post Two mass shootings in South Africa leave 27 dead appeared first on Vanguard News.