Two shooting incidents at two South African bars, in which attackers appeared to have opened fire indiscriminately, killed 19 people on Saturday night, according to South African police.
Fifteen people were killed on Saturday evening, Sunday, in Soweto, near Johannesburg, when an assailant opened fire on a crowd “who were enjoying their time” and two men opened fire indiscriminately on patrons seated in another bar in Pietermaritzburg (east) . killing four people. Police sources said that both attacks were carried out in the same way, but it is too early to talk about this.
In Soweto, Johannesburg’s largest slum town, in the southwest of the country’s economic capital, police received a call to intervene around 00:30. “When we got to the site, there were twelve dead, apparently with gunshot wounds,” local police chief Nonhlanhla Kobhaka told AFP.
Eleven injured people were taken to the hospital, two of whom later died, reportedly on Sunday morning. Details about the attackers were not reported. “They came and shot people who were having a good time,” Kufika, chief of the Orlando police station in Soweto, where the tragedy occurred, told AFP.
She added that the police did not stop anyone and launched an investigation into the incident, noting that a police brigade was still at the scene in the morning. The pub is located in the East Orlando area of Soweto.
According to AFP journalists who arrived at the scene, hundreds of residents of the area gathered behind the barriers set up by the judicial police. The bodies have been moved. From the establishment there was only a small sign with the prices of beer. Relatives of the victims tried to approach, but the police prevented them.
year of turmoil
In Pietermaritzburg, a shooting took place around 8:30 p.m. in a pub, four people died and eight were injured, local police spokesman Nkopil Gwala confirmed.
“A group of people were sipping drinks at a bar when a car pulled up in front of the building,” the officer said in a statement. “Two men ran out of the car, entered the bar and opened fire indiscriminately on the patrons,” he added. 12 people were injured, two of them died on the spot, two later in the hospital. The other eight people are still in the hospital, the official said. The age of the dead ranged from 30 to 45 years. An investigation has begun.
This tragedy comes one year after the worst violence in the country since the fall of the apartheid regime. In July 2021, violence engulfed South Africa’s most populous provinces, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, which account for half of the country’s GDP, causing more than 350 deaths. The riots broke out a day after former President Jacob Zuma began serving a 15-month prison sentence for ignoring a corruption investigation.
