Gunmen kill 21 at 3 S. Africa taverns
JOHANNESBURG — At least 21 people were killed over the weekend as gunmen opened fire on three taverns in South Africa, in what police described as “random” shootings.
Early Sunday in Soweto, in Johannesburg, a group of men armed with rifles and automatic handguns stormed a busy tavern in the Nomzamo shantytown, in the city’s Orlando East neighborhood, said Col. Dimakatso Sello, a spokeswoman for the police.
The men opened fire shortly after midnight in what appeared to be a random shooting, Sello said, killing 12 people on the scene and injuring 23. Three more people later died at a hospital, police said. They said that those killed were between the ages of 19 and 35.
The gunmen fled the scene, and no arrests have been made, police said. Later Sunday, people gathered outside the tavern as police removed bodies from the building.
Shortly before the attack in Soweto Saturday, gunmen in Pietermaritzburg, a city about 300 miles southeast of Johannesburg in KwaZulu-Natal province, killed at least four people and injured at least eight in a shooting in a tavern in Sweetwaters, an area on the outskirts of the city, police said.
There was no evidence that the two attacks were linked, said Lt.-Col. Nqobile Gwala, a spokeswoman for police.
About four hours before the Soweto attack, police said, two men entered the Sweetwaters tavern and started firing indiscriminately before fleeing the scene.
Two people died at the tavern and two others at a nearby hospital, police said, adding that those killed were between the ages of 30 and 45. Eight other people were also taken to a hospital.
In yet another tavern shooting over the weekend, gunmen killed two people and injured four Friday night in the Katlehong township, more than 25 miles east of Soweto. Police said that four men entered the establishment, at least one armed with a pistol, and started shooting randomly. Police have not said whether the two attacks in the Johannesburg area were connected but said they had launched a manhunt for the gunmen.
The three separate attacks, hundreds of miles apart, have brought into sharp focus South Africa’s high rate of crime and gun violence. According to police statistics, the country recorded 5,760 murders last year, or 9.5 murders per 100,000 people, a 66% increase from the previous year. The police station serving the Sweetwaters community has the second-highest number of murders reported in the country, according to the official statistics.
President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa condemned the killings, describing them as “unacceptable and worrying.”
Only two weeks ago, 21 teenagers mysteriously died during a night out in the coastal city of East London, about 360 miles southwest of Pietermaritzburg. The cause of their deaths is still unknown, but officials have ruled out a stampede. The episode set off a national conversation about the need for stricter regulation of taverns in South Africa’s townships.