Seventeen people were killed and 15 wounded when eight armed men opened fire at a bar west of Johannesburg on Saturday evening, police said, prompting an urgent nationwide hunt for the attackers. The shooting happened at about 1930 GMT, authorities said, and the dead included 13 males and four females.
Police said the assailants were armed with assault rifles. "They allegedly searched some patrons and took their cellphones before fleeing the scene in two unidentified motor vehicles," officers added, and investigators reported the suspects set fire to two cars before leaving.
Authorities have responded by assembling specialised teams to track the perpetrators. "Police have mobilised a team of detectives and other specialised units to trace and apprehend the suspects," the force said, signalling an intensified investigation that will focus on the vehicles used and the scenes of arson.
The attack came amid another mass shooting on the same weekend, when gunmen killed 10 people and wounded 11 at an entertainment venue in a township outside Cape Town early on Sunday. Together, the incidents underline the scale of lethal violence across multiple provinces.
South Africa has a pervasive firearms problem, with both licensed and unlicenced weapons widely available and shootings frequently linked to gang disputes or competition among informal businesses. The country of roughly 62 million people records one of the highest murder rates globally, with about 60 people killed each day, according to national tallies.
In March the government deployed soldiers to violence hotspots in Johannesburg to support police operations, after President Cyril Ramaphosa described rampant crime as one of the nation’s biggest threats. For now police investigations are concentrating on bringing those responsible for the bar attack to justice, while communities near both scenes reel from the scale of the weekend violence.
