JOHANNESBURG – An armed gang opened fire in a poor area of South Africa's largest city, killing 12 people and wounding at least nine, and fled in a minibus, police said on Wednesday.
The mass shooting occurred late Tuesday night in an informal settlement in the Cleveland suburb of Johannesburg, police said. At least 10 attackers took part in the killings.
Organized crime gangs have long competed for control of illegal mining and other activities in Johannesburg. Police did not release a motive and said the shooting was under investigation.
According to police, nine men and three women were killed. Eleven died at the scene and one died in hospital.
Police are searching for the suspects. No arrests have been made.
The provincial police commissioner, Tommy Mthombeni, called the killings “insane, heartless and somewhat barbaric”. Mthombeni said it was too early to link the violence to illegal mining gangs but police were investigating. He said police had seized illegal firearms, including assault rifles, in a recent operation in the area and that illegal miners were known to operate there.
Ambulances were at the scene Wednesday morning to transport bodies of the victims, while community members gathered in groups on the streets. Resident Nkosinathi Phatha said his uncle was among those killed.
“I was sleeping at home with my daughter, but we all woke up when the gunfire started,” Fatha said. “I'm still shaking. My young girl is still in shock.”
Informal settlements are common in and around South Africa's major cities, where people seeking permanent housing live in shacks and other temporary structures. Illegal miners sometimes operate in the same areas.
Residents said the settlement has a problem with illegal miners and the police rarely help.
“This area is not safe… the police are not doing anything about it and if we start taking the law into our own hands, we will be in trouble,” Fatha said.
The government of Africa's largest economy deployed troops in March to high-risk areas in and around Johannesburg to crack down on illegal mines run by criminal syndicates and other organized crime. The year-long operation has been condemned by opposition MPs and crime analysts as an admission that police are losing the fight against organized crime.
South Africa has extremely high violent crime rates, with more than 23,000 murders recorded in the country last financial year, an average of more than 60 per day, according to official crime statistics.
Local politician Jack Bloom said there have been crimes and murders in the area before, but this shooting was different and appeared to be linked to criminal gangs.
“It was basically a massacre. It's horrific,” Bloom said.
South Africa has recently been hit by several high-profile mass shootings, including two shootings in December that left more than 20 people dead. Several shooters were also involved in one of those attacks.
Violent gangs are involved in illegal mining in and around Johannesburg, where there are large gold deposits and many abandoned mines. Gangs search abandoned mines for leftover gold reserves, which they sometimes dump in informal settlements. Rival gangs also fight ground wars or use violence against communities to establish control over those areas.
