Bar shootings in two South African cities by armed assailants left as many as nineteen people dead, police confirmed on Sunday, reported The Africa News.
In Soweto, 15 people including two women were killed as they enjoyed a night out, police said, when assailants pulled up in a minibus taxi and opened fire on some of the patrons at the bar late Saturday night. The victims are believed to be between 19 and 35 years old.
The police said that the miscreants fled the scene in a white minibus. No motive for the attack has been established yet.
In a separate incident, four people were shot dead and eight got injured in a bar in the eastern city of Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal province when two men began firing indiscriminately at customers.
The shooting took place towards 08:30pm on Saturday and left eight others injured, local police spokesman Nqobile Gwala said.
The spokesman said two men drove up, entered the bar and fired random shots at the patrons, before fleeing. Eight other people were wounded. He added that 12 people were shot. Two people were declared dead at the scene and the other two died in hospital.
President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed his condolences to the families of victims of both shootings.
“As a nation, we cannot allow violent criminals to terrorise us in this way, regardless of where such incidents may occur,” he added.
Shootings linked to gangs or alcohol are very common in South Africa.
But this is an exceptionally high death toll and comes soon after 21 teenagers were found dead at another bar in the city of East London. The police and the authorities have not yet announced the cause of those deaths, but the teens were not shot nor killed in a stampede. They are believed to have been either gassed or poisoned.
