The death toll from Saturday’s shooting at an unlicensed bar near South Africa’s capital Pretoria has climbed to 12 after one victim succumbed to injuries in hospital.
Among the dead are three minors aged 3, 12, and 16, while 13 others were wounded.
The early morning attack took place at a bar inside a hostel in the Saulville township, drawing renewed attention to the country’s unlicensed bars, locally known as Shebeens.
“These illegal Shebeens are a serious challenge for us as police, because many murders are reported at these establishments,” said Athlenda Mathe, spokesperson for the South African Police.
“Between April and September this year, we shut down 11,975 illegal Shebeens nationwide. These mass shootings often happen at both licensed and unlicensed bars, so we are intensifying inspections and operations.”
Several mass shootings at Shebeens have occurred in recent years, including one in 2022 that killed 16 people in Johannesburg, alongside another incident in a different province that same day claiming four lives.
Mass killings in South Africa are not limited to bars. In September last year, 18 people, 15 of them women were killed in shootings minutes apart at two houses along the same road in rural Eastern Cape.
Authorities arrested seven men in connection with those attacks and recovered three AK-style assault rifles.
South Africa continues to grapple with one of the world’s highest murder rates, averaging over 70 deaths per day. Firearms are the leading cause, with illegal guns implicated in many of the killings despite strict gun ownership laws.
