Kids Among Fatalities After Rampage at S. African Tavern

A mass shooting carried out Saturday by multiple gunmen in an unlicensed bar near the South African capital left at least 12 people dead, police said. The victims included three children aged 3, 12, and 16. Another 13 people were wounded and being treated in the hospital. Police didn't give details of the ages of those who were injured or their conditions, per the AP.

• The shooting happened at a bar inside a hostel in the Saulsville township west of the administrative capital of Pretoria about 4:15am. Ten of the victims died at the scene and two others died at the hospital, police said.
• The children killed were a 3-year-old boy, a 12-year-old boy, and a 16-year-old girl. Authorities say they are believed to be related to the owner of the illegal tavern, per the New York Times.

• Police said they were searching for three shooters. "We are told that at least three unknown gunmen entered this hostel where a group of people were drinking and they started randomly shooting," police spokesperson Brig. Athlenda Mathe told national broadcaster SABC. She said the motive for the killings was not clear.
• There have been several mass shootings at bars—sometimes called shebeens or taverns in South Africa—in recent years, including one that killed 16 people in the Johannesburg township of Soweto in 2022. On the same day, four people were killed in a mass shooting at a bar in another province.
• Mathe said that mass shootings at unlicensed bars were becoming a serious problem and that police had shut down more than 11,000 illegal taverns between April and September this year, arresting more than 18,000 people for involvement in illegal liquor sales.
• South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world and recorded more than 26,000 homicides in 2024—an average of more than 70 a day. Firearms are by far the leading cause of death in homicides. The country of 62 million people has relatively strict gun ownership laws, but many killings are committed with illegal guns, authorities say.