Three children among 12 people killed in mass shooting at South African bar

A mass shooting carried out by multiple suspects in an unlicensed bar near the South African capital has left at least 12 people dead, including three children.

Another 13 people were injured and are being treated in hospital following the incident west of Pretoria, South African Police Services said in a statement.

The children who were killed were aged three, 12 and 16. The ages of the others killed and injured are not yet known.

The shooting happened at a bar inside a hostel in the Saulsville township in the early hours of Saturday.

The initial death toll of 11 was raised to 12 after one of the injured died in hospital.

Police said they are searching for three suspects.

“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 spokeswoman Brigadier Athlenda Mathe told national broadcaster SABC.

She said the motive for the killings was not clear. The shootings happened at around 4.15am, she said, but police were only alerted at 6am.

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.

Police said 18 people were killed, 15 of them women, in mass shootings at two separate houses on the same road in a rural part of Eastern Cape province in September last year.

Seven men were arrested for those shootings and face multiple charges of murder, while police recovered three AK-style assault rifles they believe were used in the shootings.