AT LEAST nine people have been killed after a dozen gunmen stormed into a bar and opened fire.
A manhunt has been launched to find the 12 suspects as they continued to randomly shoot civilians out on the street as they fled in two carspolice say.
Another 10 civilians were injured in the shooting which happened at about 1am local time in South Africa on Sunday.
A police statement said attackers “opened fire at tavern patrons” once arriving in two vehicles in the town of Bekkersdal – 25 miles south-west of Johannesburg.
They continued to “shoot randomly as they fled the scene”.
One of the victims includes a driver from an online car-hailing service who had been parked up outside of the bar.
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GUN HORROR
Boy, 3, among 11 killed in mass shooting at bar as cops hunt three gunmen on run
No arrests have been made yet with cops still hunting down the 12 unidentified gunmen.
Police commissioner May Gen Fred KekanaKekana told SABC News the police are dealing with a “challenging and unfortunate situation”.
It follows another mass shooting earlier this month, where at least 11 people were shot dead at a hostel near Pretoria.
A three-year-old boy, a girl of 16 and a 12-year-old boy were among those killed with 14 others wounded.
The shooting happened at an unlicensed bar in the Saulsville township west of Pretoria in the early hours of Saturday, December 6.
South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world and recorded more than 26,000 homicides in 2024 an average of more than 70 a day.
Firearms are by far the leading cause of death in homicides.
The country of 62 million people has relatively strict gun ownership laws, but many killings are committed with illegal guns, authorities say.
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.
A man was charged with 18 counts of murder for allegedly shooting the victims with an AK-style assault rifle.