Bekkersdal Sunday morning’s mass shooting left nine people dead and ten others injured.
South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world, with an average of 63 people a day killed between April and September this year, according to police data.
In one of the worst mass shootings in recent years, 18 relatives were shot dead at a rural homestead in the Eastern Cape province in September 2024. The victims, who had gathered for a traditional ceremony, were age 14 to 64, and 15 were women. Several men have been arrested.
The latest shooting in Bekkersdal, nine people have been killed after gunmen opened fire at a bar near Johannesburg in the second mass shooting in South Africa this month.
Ten more were wounded in the early morning attack at the tavern in the impoverished Bekkersdal township in a gold mining area about 25 miles (40km) south-west of Johannesburg.
It comes after a shooting at a tavern near Pretoria on 6 December when gunmen killed 12 people, including a three-year-old child.
Police initially said 10 people were killed when the Bekkersdal bar was attacked just before 1am, but later revised the toll.
Most of the attackers were armed with pistols and one had an AK-47 rifle, the deputy provincial police commissioner Maj Gen Fred Kekana told SABC television from the scene.
“They entered the tavern and randomly shot at the patrons, unprovoked,” he said.
Three people were killed inside the bar and others were killed as they fled the scene, he said.
“It’s also reported that after they shot the people, they searched them. They took their valuables, including cell phones.”
The dead included a driver from an online car-hailing service who was driving past.
“It’s pure criminality,” Kekana said. Police launched a manhunt for the attackers and appealed for public assistance.
The tavern hit in Pretoria last month was an unlicenced outlet in a hostel for migrant workers at Saulsville township. The dead included children age three, 12 and 16.
