South Africa, grappling with entrenched crime and corruption, has one of many world’s highest homicide charges.
Revealed On 6 Dec 2025
Gunmen have killed at the very least 12 folks, together with a three-year-old boy, in a mass taking pictures at a bar close to the South African metropolis of Pretoria, in response to police.
Athlenda Mathe, spokesperson for the South African Police Service (SAPS), confirmed on Saturday {that a} whole of 25 folks had been shot within the bar in Saulsville township, 18km (11 miles) west of Pretoria, including that 14 had been taken to hospital.
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Police mentioned three minors had been among the many lifeless within the taking pictures, together with the three-year-old, a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old woman.
The taking pictures occurred in what Mathe described as an “unlawful shebeen” – or bar – inside a hostel at about 4:30am (02:30 GMT), with three gunmen indiscriminately firing at a gaggle of males who had been ingesting.
Police weren’t alerted till about 6am (04:00 GMT). They mentioned a manhunt had been launched and that the motive was as but unknown.
South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised nation, is grappling with entrenched crime and corruption pushed by organised networks.
The nation has one of many world’s highest homicide charges, spurred by robberies and gang violence, with some 63 folks killed every day between April and September, in response to police knowledge.
“We’re having a severe problem in relation to these unlawful and unlicensed liquor premises,” Mathe mentioned, including that they’re the place most mass shootings happen.
“Harmless folks additionally get caught up within the crossfire,” she instructed public broadcaster SABC.
In October, two youngsters had been killed and 5 wounded in a gang‑associated taking pictures in Johannesburg, the nation’s monetary capital.
In one other incident in Could, gunmen killed eight prospects at a tavern within the southeastern metropolis of Durban.
Final yr, 18 kinfolk had been shot lifeless at a rural homestead within the nation’s Japanese Cape province.
Many individuals in South Africa personal licensed firearms for private safety, however there are numerous extra unlawful weapons in circulation.
