Police hunt gunmen after tavern attack kills 17 and Cape Town shooting kills 10

Two mass shootings hours apart have left 27 people dead and 26 wounded, one at a tavern west of Johannesburg and one at an entertainment venue in Lwandle, Cape Town. Police have launched a search for suspects in both cases and had made no arrests at the time of writing.

As Deutsche Welle reported on 27 September, gunmen armed with assault rifles killed 17 people and wounded 15 others at a bar west of Johannesburg. The South African Police Service said the attackers searched some patrons and took their cellphones before fleeing in two unidentified motor vehicles. Emergency services declared all 17 victims dead at the scene. The shooting happened on Saturday at about 9:30pm.

The SAPS said the suspects were reportedly armed with AK-47 rifles and pistols. A motive was not known.

In the second attack, police said gunmen killed 10 people and wounded 11 more at an entertainment venue in Lwandle at 1:46am. Five of the victims died at the scene.

The two incidents, roughly four hours apart and about 1 400km apart, bring the weekend’s death toll to 27. That is a scale of loss that will be felt in two communities, and it lands on a country that already records some of the highest rates of violent crime in the world.

What a South African reader will notice first is the weaponry. Assault rifles and pistols, used in a public venue, in the middle of an evening. The SAPS statement describes a sequence that is familiar from other mass shootings in this country: armed men enter, take what they want, open fire, and leave in vehicles that are later difficult to trace.

The tavern and the entertainment venue are both places where people gather to socialise. The attacks happened at night, when such venues are full. The wounded, 26 of them, are now in hospitals in Gauteng and the Western Cape.

Both cases fall under the SAPS, which has the lead in the investigation. The Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, known as the Hawks, typically takes over cases of this nature, though no confirmation of a takeover has been issued. The National Prosecuting Authority will be the body that decides on charges once arrests are made. No arrests have been reported.

Mass shootings at bars and taverns have occurred before in South Africa, and the pattern of multiple attackers arriving and leaving in vehicles has appeared in several. The country’s murder rate has remained stubbornly high, and firearms are the most common weapon used in those killings, according to the police’s own quarterly crime statistics.

What the foreign report does not carry is the local machinery that sits behind a case like this. The SAPS’s forensic services, its vehicle identification work, and the role of community tip-offs in tracing suspects are all part of how these investigations proceed. In many such cases, arrests follow within days, and the courts then carry a prosecution that can take years.

The SAPS has asked anyone with information to come forward. It has not said whether it has identified the vehicles or the attackers.

On Sunday, police were still at both scenes. The 27 dead have not all been named publicly. The 26 wounded are being treated. No motive has been established in either attack.

Source: Deutsche Welle, South Africa: Pair of mass shootings leave dozens dead