Motive unknown after about a dozen gunmen in minibus and car target tavern in Bekkersdal township, police say.
At least nine people have been killed and 10 wounded when armed men opened fire at a tavern in a township near the city of Johannesburg in South Africa, police said, adding that some victims were “randomly shot in the streets”.
In a statement on Sunday, the police said a manhunt by Gauteng Serious and Violent Crime Investigations in collaboration with the Crime Detection Tracing Unit is under way for those involved in the shooting, which took place in the Bekkersdal township just before 1am on Sunday (23:00 GMT on Saturday).
“It is reported that about 12 unknown suspects in a white kombi [a minibus] and a silver sedan opened fire at tavern patrons and continued to shoot randomly as they fled the scene,” the police said in a statement.
“The tavern is licensed,” it added.
Authorities said the wounded were taken to hospital.
There have been several mass shootings at bars – sometimes called shebeens or taverns in South Africa – in recent years, including a mass shooting carried out by multiple suspects in an unlicensed bar near the South African capital Pretoria that killed at least 12 people, including a three-year-old, early this month.
“We are still busy obtaining statements. Our national crime and management team has arrived,” Fred Kekana, acting police commissioner of Gauteng, told the SABC.
“The provincial crime scene management team has arrived, and a team from the local criminal record centre is here. So is our serious crime investigating team, crime intelligence and the provincial crime detective team is on scene,” he added.
Kekana also said a driver with a ride-hailing service who was outside the bar is among those killed. A motive for the attack was not immediately clear.
The police added that the attackers also robbed victims after killing them. Kekana, the acting police commissioner said the attackers searched people after shooting them, taking their valuables, including phones. He said three people were killed inside the bar, while others were shot as they tried to flee, with the gunmen continuing to fire as they left the scene.
Some media reports initially put the death toll at 10 but later revised it to nine.
According to Imraan Buccus, a political and socioeconomic analyst, deadly crime rises during the festive season.
“There’s often an increase in alcohol consumption during the festive period, and this is correlated with spikes in violence,” Buccus told Al Jazeera, speaking from Durban.
Meanwhile, policing in working class areas is “not great”, Buccus said, adding that the police force is riddled with corruption and is underfunded.
A lot of violence happens in the urban centers of the country, including Durban, Johannesburg, and Cape Town, he said.
With almost 26,000 homicides in 2024, or more than 70 per day on average, South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. Firearms are by far the leading cause of death in homicides. Although the nation of 62 million people has comparatively stringent gun control laws, officials said many killings are carried out using illegal firearms.
Buccus said that the country has experienced a general upsurge in violence since 2013, in the immediate aftermath of the Marikana massacre, a “huge” massacre which took place at a mine in the country.
Much of the violence at that time was deadly police violence against protestors, he said.
“Violence is not incidental to the post-apartheid state in South Africa … it [is] central to it. It starts to permeate the daily lives of just so many people,” Buccus told Al Jazeera.
