Police in Johannesburg's Soweto area report that a mass shooting at a bar resulted in the deaths of 14 people and the critical injuries of three more.
Police say they are looking into claims that a gang of guys entered the bar late on Saturday night in a minibus taxi and started shooting at some of the customers. On Sunday morning, police were retrieving the remains of the slain and looking into what had caused the mass shooting.
The one other wounded person and the three critically hurt people have been brought to Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.
Lt. Gen. Elias Mawela, the police commissioner for the Gauteng province, said that the quantity of cartridges discovered at the scene suggested that several people fired shots 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 caliber 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.
Two weeks have passed since 21 adolescents were discovered dead in a bar in the city of East London before the shooting in the Soweto bar. Authorities have not yet disclosed the cause of those deaths, but they have stated that neither gunfire nor a stampede killed the teenagers.