South Africa Shootings: Police Hunt Gunmen After Tavern Massacre

South African police are hunting the gunmen behind two mass shootings that killed 28 people within hours of each other over the weekend, according to Reuters. The attacks, at a tavern outside Johannesburg on Saturday evening and a crowded open-air venue outside Cape Town in the early hours of Sunday, rank among the deadliest bursts of gun violence the country has seen in years. President Cyril Ramaphosa said the bloodshed could not continue.

The deadlier of the two attacks happened in Wedela township, about 80 km (50 miles) from Johannesburg, where 17 people were killed and 15 injured when men armed with AK-47 rifles opened fire on Saturday evening, police said. Police said on Monday that the toll had risen to 18 after one more victim died in hospital. Officers said they had clear pictures of the suspects and were still searching for them.

Witness Siyabonga Vokwana was inside the tavern when eight people wearing balaclavas and jackets from Lesotho entered and began checking who was there. "After checking, they start shooting," he said. The gunmen then torched two vehicles before fleeing, according to Reuters. Residents told the news agency they were reluctant to speak, but one said illegal miners, known locally as zama zamas, live in the area, where gangs control the illicit gold-mining trade and guard their shafts with military-grade weapons.

Gauteng police commissioner Tommy Mthombeni told reporters that one line of inquiry was a "turf war in terms of illegal mining" among the heavily armed gangs that control the illegal gold trade in the area. He said the attack could be retaliation for another shooting at the same tavern about a month earlier. Mthombeni said the victims included South Africans and Lesotho nationals, with one Ethiopian among the wounded. Lesotho-based gangs are known to be active in the trade, in which migrants from other African countries are often exploited for labour and spend months underground searching abandoned mine shafts for scraps of gold.

The Cape Town venue shooting

Hours later, in Lwandle on the outskirts of Cape Town, gunmen opened fire at a venue where people were drinking at around 2 a.m. on Sunday, killing 10 people and injuring eleven. An eyewitness video shows people dancing and singing in a crowded outdoor area when a burst of shots is heard, followed by screams. Witness Kamvalethu Galada told Reuters she had thought the first sound was fireworks and kept dancing until everyone dropped to the ground, then saw "bodies laying on top of other people that are literally alive."

"A business jealousy might have been the issue," an unnamed police official said, citing reports that people had been buying alcohol in cheaper places and going to the venue to drink. No arrests have been made, police said. Ramaphosa told local media that police had images of the suspects and that the security forces would now "pull out all stops" to bring down what he called "the level of criminality." "This cannot go on like this," he said.

A crisis before the November elections

The shootings came only days after another attack killed 11 people at a house party near Durban, according to Reuters. Violent crime is rife in South Africa despite efforts to curb one of the world's highest per-capita murder rates. Crime expert Yusuf Abramjee said the country is flooded with illegal weapons, and that "authorities need to look at the wider networks behind the violence."

The violence is set to dominate politics in the run-up to November's municipal elections, when the African National Congress faces further erosion of voter support. Fear and anger over high rates of femicide have also risen after the discovery of women's bodies near Johannesburg since July. Ramaphosa said earlier this year that organised crime had become the biggest threat to South Africa's democracy, and he deployed the army to help police in some areas.

Police said four of those killed in Wedela had so far been identified, and two were South Africans and two were nationals of Lesotho. Officers said they were still working to establish the motives for both shootings. The Reuters report on the weekend shootings and the updated Reuters toll from Monday carry the full police statements.