(PRETORIA, South Africa) — Fourteen people were killed and three others are in a critical condition after unknown gunmen opened fire at a tavern in Soweto, South Africa.
Police said they’re investigating reports that a group of men arrived in a minibus taxi and started shooting at patrons in the bar late Saturday night.
The South African Police’s Colonel Dimakatso Sello said a group of men armed with rifles and 9 mm pistols entered the tavern and started shooting randomly at the patrons who were sitting inside.
Sello said 23 people were shot, 12 of whom were declared dead on the scene. Another 11 were rushed to a nearby hospital, where two more were later declared dead, Sello said.
The police opened 14 cases of murder and nine of attempted murder.
Another four people were shot and killed on Saturday night in a separate incident in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, a town outside Durban, on South Africa’s eastern coast.
Police said two gunmen entered a tavern there at about 8:30 p.m. and randomly opened fire on the patrons. At least 12 people were shot, police said. Two people died at the scene and another two died at a nearby hospital, police said.
“The team will be working around the clock to track down and bring to book those responsible for this shooting,” Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanaz, the provincial commissioner, said in a statement.
The shootings come two weeks after 21 teenagers were found dead in a tavern in the city of East London. The cause of those deaths has not yet been announced by authorities, but the teens were not shot nor crushed in a stampede, according to officials.
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