By Xolani Nhlapo and Esa Alexander
JOHANNESBURG/CAPE TOWN, Sept 27 (Reuters) – South African police were on Sunday hunting the perpetrators of two separate shootings that killed 27 people within hours of each other, highlighting the country’s rampant gun violence.
“This cannot go on like this,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said of the incidents, which came only days after another shooting killed 11 people at a house party near Durban.
Authorities were still working to establish the motives for the shootings near Johannesburg and Cape Town, but initial investigations suggested one could be a turf war between illegal miners and the other a business rivalry.
“This is the level of criminality that we must bring down, and our security forces are now going to continue pulling out all stops,” Ramaphosa told local media channels.
Violent crime is rife in South Africa, despite efforts to curb one of the world’s highest per-capita murder rates.
TAVERN SHOOTING COULD BE RETALIATION
In Wedela township, about 80 km (50 miles) from Johannesburg, 17 people were killed and 15 injured at a tavern when suspects armed with AK-47 rifles opened fire on Saturday evening, police said.
Ramaphosa said police had images of the suspects and were working to track them down.
Residents were reluctant to speak about the incident, but one said that illegal miners, known locally as zama zamas from an isiZulu expression for “taking a chance”, live in the area, where gangs control the illicit gold-mining trade and are known to guard their shafts with military-grade weapons.
Witness Siyabonga Vokwana said he was in the tavern when eight people wearing balaclavas and jackets from Lesotho entered and started checking who was in the tavern.
“After checking, they start shooting,” he said.
Lesotho-based gangs are known to be active in the trade, in which migrants from other African countries are often exploited for labour and spend months underground searching abandoned industrial mine shafts for scraps of gold.
The province’s police commissioner Tommy Mthombeni told reporters that one line of inquiry was that the shooting was a “turf war in terms of illegal mining”.
Saturday’s shooting could be retaliation for another at the same tavern about a month ago, he added.
Mthombeni said the victims had not all been identified but that they included South Africans and Lesotho nationals, as well as one Ethiopian who was among the wounded.
REVELRY HALTED BY GUNFIRE
In the incident in Lwandle on the outskirts of Cape Town, gunmen opened fire in a venue where people were drinking at around 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, killing 10 people and injuring 11.
An eyewitness video shows people dancing and singing in a crowded outdoor area when a burst of shots is heard, followed by screams.
Witness Kamvalethu Galada said she initially thought the sound was fireworks and continued dancing until everyone dropped to the ground.
“After we were laying on the floor we just heard gunshots continuously, and then probably after like 10 to 20, 15 minutes, everyone stood up trying to … run away,” she told Reuters.
“Bodies were laying around us, bodies laying on top of other people that are literally alive.”
A police official said, “A business jealousy might have been the issue,” as there were reports that people had been buying alcohol in cheaper places and going to the venue to drink.
No arrests have been made, police said.
THREAT TO DEMOCRACY
Crime is expected to be a major issue for voters in municipal elections in November, when the African National Congress is facing further erosion of voter support. Fear and anger over high rates of femicide have risen after the discovery of women’s bodies near Johannesburg since July.
Ramaphosa said earlier this year that organised crime had become the biggest threat to South Africa’s democracy, and deployed the army to help police in some areas.
Crime expert Yusuf Abramjee said South Africa is flooded with illegal weapons, which is part of the problem.
“Authorities need to look at the wider networks behind the violence,” he told Reuters.
(Additional reporting by Siyabonga Sishi, Nellie Peyton, Thando Hlophe, and Thuli Tshabalala in Johannesburg and Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Writing by Nellie Peyton and Alexander Winning; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle, David Holmes, Alexander Smith and Christina Fincher)
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