CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — A mass capturing carried out Saturday by a number of suspects in an unlicensed bar close to the South African capital left no less than 12 individuals lifeless, police mentioned. The victims included three youngsters aged 3, 12 and 16.
One other 13 individuals had been wounded and being handled within the hospital. Police didn’t give particulars of the ages of those that had been injured or their circumstances.
Police adjusted the loss of life toll after they mentioned a twelfth sufferer died within the hospital.
The capturing occurred at a bar inside a hostel within the Saulsville township west of the executive capital of Pretoria within the early hours of Saturday. Ten of the victims died on the scene and two others died on the hospital, police mentioned.
The kids killed had been a 3-year-old boy, a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old lady. Police mentioned they had been trying to find three male suspects.
“We are told that at least three unknown gunmen entered this hostel where a group of people were drinking and they started randomly shooting,” police spokesperson Brig. Athlenda Mathe advised nationwide broadcaster SABC. She mentioned the motive for the killings was not clear. The shootings occurred at round 4.15 a.m., she mentioned, however police had been solely alerted at 6 a.m.
South Africa has one of many highest murder charges on the earth and recorded greater than 26,000 homicides in 2024 — a mean of greater than 70 a day. Firearms are by far the main explanation for loss of life in homicides.
The nation of 62 million individuals has comparatively strict gun possession legal guidelines, however many killings are dedicated with unlawful weapons, authorities say.
There have been a number of mass shootings at bars — generally known as shebeens or taverns in South Africa — lately, together with one which killed 16 individuals within the Johannesburg township of Soweto in 2022. On the identical day, 4 individuals had been killed in a mass capturing at a bar in one other province.
Mathe mentioned that mass shootings at unlicensed bars had been turning into a significant issue and police had shut down greater than 11,000 unlawful taverns between April and September this 12 months and arrested greater than 18,000 individuals for involvement in unlawful liquor gross sales.
Latest mass killings in South Africa haven’t been confined to bars, nevertheless. Police mentioned 18 individuals had been killed, 15 of them ladies, in mass shootings minutes aside at two homes on the identical highway in a rural a part of Japanese Cape province in September final 12 months.
Seven males had been arrested for these shootings and face a number of prices of homicide, whereas police recovered three AK-style assault rifles they imagine had been used within the shootings.
