MORE THAN DOZEN KILLED IN MASS SHOOTING AT SOWETO BAR IN SOUTH AFRICA

Sun 10 July 2022:

In a mass shooting that took place in a pub in the Soweto neighborhood of Johannesburg, at least 15 people were killed.

Gauteng Police Commissioner Elias Mawela said masked men entered the liquor outlet in Nomzamo park in Orlando East.

They opened fire on patrons using high-calibre weapons.

“We were called in the early hours of the morning, around 12.30am. When we arrived on the scene, 12 people were confirmed dead,” he said.

Mawela said 11 others were taken to hospital. Two remain in a critical condition.

Mawela said the incident happened shortly after midnight when gunmen opened fire on revelers who were enjoying themselves at a club in the Nomzamo informal settlement in Orlando.

Several killed in mass shooting at Soweto bar in South Africa
Fifteen people were killed during a shootout in a bar in South Africa’s Soweto township, close to Johannesburg, police said Sunday.#sowetotarven pic.twitter.com/pl9F5hW8ou

— INDEPENDENT PRESS (@IpIndependent) July 10, 2022

“For now, we don’t have details on the motive of the attack but as investigations progress, we are hoping we will get more information,” he told local reporters at the scene.

He said the attackers used high-caliber fire and were apparently shooting randomly.

The incident comes two weeks after tragic deaths of 22 young people at a nightclub in the city of East London in the Eastern Cape province.

South Africa is one of the world’s most violent countries with 20,000 people murdered every year, one of the highest per-capita murder rates globally.

Soweto, near Johannesburg, is the largest of the country’s Black townships. They were the creations of white minority rule, which ended in 1994 but whose legacy of widespread poverty and youth unemployment persist nearly three decades later.

Local media reported that another shooting in a tavern in Pietermaritzburg, about 500 km southeast of Soweto, had killed four people overnight. A police spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent