A woman cries at the scene of a shooting at a nightclub in Soweto, South Africa, on July 10, 2022. Shiraaz Mohammed/Associated Press
Gunmen killed 19 people in two apparently random shootings within hours of each other in South African taverns, police said Sunday, cementing the country’s grim status as a global killing center.
Gunmen armed with rifles and pistols opened fire at the Orlando East bar in the city of Soweto in the early hours of Sunday, killing 15 people and injuring nine, police said.
“You can see by the way the casings are thrown around that they were just firing randomly,” said Elias Mauela, police commissioner for Gauteng province.
Sololo Mjoli’s two sons, Thembiso, 34, and Luyanda, 18, were both killed in the attack at the bar in one of Soweto’s poorer neighborhoods, made up mostly of tin workers.
“I’m so devastated,” said the 59-year-old gardener, adding that Stemibiso’s girlfriend arrived at the scene shortly after the shooting and found him breathing.
He was then rushed to hospital where he died.
Bar waiter Thobani Mhlabiso said he hid behind the fridge to survive the attack.
“There was blood everywhere,” he said.
Police confirmed a second apparently random shooting hours earlier, at around 8.30pm on Saturday, at a tavern in Pietermaritzburg, 500km south-east of Soweto, in which four people were killed and eight wounded.
Officers said they do not believe the two shootings are related. The killers in both incidents are at large, according to police, who said it was unclear how many attackers were involved in the shooting.
South Africa, home to around 60 million people, is one of the most violent countries in the world with 20,000 people killed each year, one of the highest per capita homicide rates in the world.
There are about three million registered guns in the country, according to the Gun Free South Africa campaign, although many more are believed to be circulating on the black market.
At the scene of the shooting in Soweto, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, crowds gathered around a police cordon as officers searched the area for clues – one carrying zip-top bags filled with spent cartridges.
Soweto is the largest of the black cities in the country. They were creations of white minority rule that ended in 1994, but whose legacy of widespread poverty, youth unemployment and violence continues almost three decades later.
Gauteng Police Commissioner Mauela told Reuters there was a third shooting during a suspected robbery at a tavern in Katlehong, also outside Johannesburg, on Thursday night, killing two people and injuring two others.
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