Death toll in random shooting in Johannesburg’s tavern rises to 15: official

CAPE TOWN: The death toll of a random shooting that happened early Sunday at a tavern in Johannesburg’s Soweto township has risen to 15 after one more person succumbed to injury, an official said on Sunday.

It is alleged that gunmen got off a minibus taxi, entered the tavern, and then shot at people inside, Faith Mazibuko, head of the Provincial Department of Community Safety, told reporters outside the tavern, or pub.

“Currently, it is confirmed that 15 people have passed on,” she said.

“We came to socialize as members of the community but more than two hours after our arrival, we heard some screams coming from the other side of the room as one gunman was pointing a gun at patrons,” Monde Sigabadela, an eyewitness at the tavern told Xinhua on the telephone.

“People were having drinks, so we were all shocked when we heard bullets being fired,” said the witness.

In a live interview with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), Mazibuko added that authorities “don’t know if they (assailants) are trying to provoke the situation or what is happening.”

They were “unprovoked” as they came into the tavern, and didn’t take any money or anything else, she said.

The police said in a statement earlier that a group of men armed with rifles and 9mm pistols entered the tavern at around 12:30 a.m. local time (2230 GMT Saturday), and started shooting randomly at customers who were sitting inside, killing 12 people on the scene and injuring 11 others.

The victims are estimated to be 19 to 35 years of age and the police are still investigating the incident. The tavern is legal and the incident happened during its operating hours.

It was not the first shooting of this kind in Soweto, as a similar incident happened in 2019, Police Commissioner of Gauteng Elias Mawela told local television eNCA earlier.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in a statement on Sunday expressed his condolences, and concerns about the deaths in the shooting in Soweto, as well as four other people who were also killed under similar circumstances in Pietermaritzburg, about 450 km southeast of Johannesburg.

He urged security agencies and community members to work together to urgently bring the perpetrators of the two attacks to book.

-Xinhua/RSS