The incident took place shortly after midnight, when a group of men armed with 9mm rifles and pistols entered the bar of the informal settlement of Nomzamo, near Johannesburg, and began firing. ” random “customers, Gauteng police said in a statement.
Police said 23 people were shot at the establishment: 12 died at the scene and 11 were rushed to a nearby hospital with injuries. Two more people were pronounced dead at the hospital.
Police have opened investigations into 14 murder cases and nine attempted murder cases, according to the statement.
“It’s a bad scene. When you see the bodies [that] are crowded, you can see that each of these people [was] struggling to get out of the tavern, ”Gauteng police commissioner Elias Mawela told South African news channel ENCA.
Mawela said police have not yet determined details about why or why the people at the tavern were targeted.
“I have no doubt that with the cooperation of the community here, we will be able to resolve this case,” Mawela added.
Police asked witnesses to testify, saying the suspects were still fleeing.
Four more people were killed Saturday night in a shooting at a Sweetwaters bar in Pietermaritzburg, police said Sunday.
KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi said in a statement that at least 12 people were shot after two men entered the tavern and “opened fire at random”. As in the Soweto shooting, police said the suspects were still at large and there was a human hunt underway.
The shooting comes as the country is still mourning the deaths of 22 young people, some of them 13, who died in still unexplained circumstances in an East London tavern last month.