Twelve people were killed and 25 shot after gunmen burst into an unlicensed tavern near South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, early Saturday morning and began randomly shooting patrons, the police said.
The police were still investigating the motive for the shooting and were searching for three unknown assailants, Brig. Athlenda Mathe, a spokeswoman for the South African Police Service, said in an interview.
Three minors were killed, the youngest 3 years old and believed to be related to the owner of the illegal tavern, Brigadier Mathe said. Thirteen survivors who were shot were being treated at the hospital, she said.
The attack added to the grim list of mass shootings in recent years that have rocked South Africa, which has among the highest murder rates in the world.
The shooting occurred shortly after 4 a.m. and the police were called about two hours later, Brigadier Mathe said. It happened in Atteridgeville, a township west of Pretoria, in what is known as a hostel, which were ramshackle housing blocks set up during apartheid as living quarters for Black laborers who migrated to cities for work. Today, hostels remain impoverished and can sometimes be hot spots for violence.
The gunmen opened fire on people who had been drinking in an illegally operated shebeen, which is like an informal dive bar common in poor settlements across the country, often run out of the owners’ homes.
“They are posing a serious challenge when it comes to violent crime,” Brigadier Mathe said of these illegal taverns. “They keep mushrooming.”
Fights often break out in them, and they can escalate to fatal violence, often catching innocent victims in the crossfire, she said. From April to September, the police have shut down nearly 12,000 illegal taverns across South Africa, she said.
At least 19 people were fatally shot in random shootings at separate bars on the same evening three years ago. Many mass shootings have also been personal. Last year, 17 members of a single family were killed when gunmen attacked their rural homesteads. That followed the killing of eight people at a birthday party and the fatal shooting of 10 at another homestead.
John Eligon is the Johannesburg bureau chief for The Times, covering a wide range of events and trends that influence and shape the lives of ordinary people across southern Africa.
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