South Africa: 28 Dead in Two Weekend Shootings
Eight armed attackers stormed a tavern near Johannesburg and killed 18 people; ten more died in a shooting in a township near Cape Town. Ramaphosa has ordered a crackdown. No one has been arrested.
Two mass shootings overnight between Saturday and Sunday killed at least 28 people in South Africa, one near Johannesburg and one near Cape Town, cities more than 1,400 kilometers apart. Police have not arrested a single attacker so far, and President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that security forces will keep up their raids.
The first shooting happened on Saturday around 9:30 p.m. local time at Dora’s Tavern in the township of Wedela, near Carletonville, in the West Rand district west of Johannesburg. Eight masked, armed men carrying AK-47 rifles and handguns first opened fire on patrons sitting outside the tavern, then went inside and kept shooting. The attackers took mobile phones from some of the patrons, set two vehicles on fire and fled in two unidentified cars.
Seventeen people were killed in Wedela, 13 men and four women, and 15 more were wounded. Official agencies and the outlets that reported first, among them France 24, ABC News and CBS News, put the death toll at 17 on Sunday. Scrolla.Africa later reported that the number had risen to 18 after one of the wounded died in hospital. Of the four victims identified so far, two are South African nationals and two are from Lesotho.
Ramaphosa condemned the violence after the attack.
“This cannot go on. This is a level of crime we have to bring down, and our security forces will keep taking every possible measure,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said, according to Scrolla.Africa.
Ramaphosa added that police have photographs of the suspects and are working to track them down. Gauteng police have set up a dedicated team, and Operation Prosper, which involves the army and specialized police units, was already deployed in the district before the attack.
What does the police suspect was the motive?
Officials have not confirmed a motive yet, but they point to three possibilities: a conflict over illegal gold mines in the area, worked by miners locally known as zama zamas; revenge for a shooting at the same tavern a month earlier that killed one person; or a business rivalry over alcohol sales. Gauteng provincial police commissioner Tommy Mthombeni told reporters that one line of the investigation is a dispute over illegal mining.
Just after midnight, at 1:46 a.m. on Sunday, attackers opened fire at a bar in the township of Lwandle, near Cape Town in the Western Cape. Ten people were killed there, including two women, and 11 were wounded. Five died at the scene and five on the way to the hospital. No one has been arrested in this case either. Earlier that Saturday evening, around 7:15 p.m., in a third and separate incident, four more men were shot dead in the township of Khayelitsha, also near Cape Town.
Lucky Ntimane, chairperson of South Africa’s National Liquor Traders Council, warned that the attacks put both patrons and tavern owners at risk.
“This is deeply concerning for us as tavern owners, because it tells us we are facing an existential threat, where our way of providing for our families is now under threat,” Ntimane told Scrolla.Africa, calling for tougher police action.
This weekend’s shootings come just days after 11 people, including a pregnant woman, were killed at a house party in the township of KwaMakhutha, near Durban, on Tuesday. Attackers in that case have not been identified either. South Africa, a country of about 62 million people, records roughly 60 murders a day on average, one of the highest rates in the world, and the government already sent the army into hotspots around Johannesburg back in March.
The search for the attackers from Wedela and Lwandle continues, and police have not said when they expect the first arrests.
