14 dead, 9 injured in South African tavern shooting

PRETORIA, South Africa — Fourteen people were killed and three others are in a critical condition after unknown gunmen opened fire at a tavern in Soweto, South Africa.

Police said they’re investigating reports that a group of men arrived in a minibus taxi and started shooting at patrons in the bar late Saturday night.

The South African Police’s Colonel Dimakatso Sello said a group of men armed with rifles and 9 mm pistols entered the tavern and started shooting randomly at the patrons who were sitting inside.

Sello said 23 people were shot, 12 of whom were declared dead on the scene. Another 11 were rushed to a nearby hospital, where two more were later declared dead, Sello said.

The police opened 14 cases of murder and nine of attempted murder.

The Gauteng Province Provincial Police commissioner, Lieutenant General Elias Mawela, told the Associated Press that the number of cartridges found on the scene indicated it was a group of people who shot at the patrons.

“The primary investigation suggests that these people were enjoying themselves here, in a licensed tavern operating within the right hours,” Mawela told The Associated Press.

“All of a sudden they heard some gunshots, that is when people tried to run out of the tavern. We don’t have the full details at the moment of what is the motive, and why they were targeting these people,” he said.

“You can see that a high calibre firearm was used and it was shooting randomly. You can see that every one of those people were struggling to get out of the tavern,” Mawela told The Associated Press.

The shooting in the Soweto bar comes two weeks after 21 teenagers were found dead in a tavern in the city of East London. The cause of those deaths has not yet been announced by authorities, but the teens were not shot nor crushed in a stampede, according to officials.