Gunmen stormed an illegal bar in South Africa’s capital Pretoria, killing 12 people including a three-year-old boy, police said.<\/p>\n
Police did not say whether the shooting occurred inside or outside the illegal bar, known locally as a shebeen.<\/p>\n
“I can confirm that a total of 25 people were shot,” police spokeswoman Athlenda Mathe said, adding that 14 had been hospitalised.<\/p>\n
Ten had died at the scene in Saulsville township, 18km west of Pretoria, while another two died in hospital, she said.<\/p>\n
Three gunmen entered the premise at around 4.30am (2.30am Irish time) and indiscriminately fired at a group of men who were drinking.<\/p>\n
A 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl were also killed in the attack.<\/p>\n
The attack is the latest in a string of mass shootings that have shocked the crime-weary country of 63 million people.<\/p>\n
“Quite an unfortunate incident. Police were only alerted to this incident at around six o’clock,” said Ms Mathe.<\/p>\n
“We are having a serious challenge when it comes to these illegal and unlicensed liquor premises,” she said, adding that they are where most mass shootings occur.<\/p>\n
“Innocent people also get caught up in the crossfire,” she told public broadcaster SABC.<\/p>\n
The motive of the shooting was unknown and no arrests had been made.<\/p>\n
A manhunt was launched in search of three unidentified suspects.<\/p>\n
South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised nation, is grappling with entrenched crime and corruption driven by organised networks.<\/p>\n
Many people own licenced firearms for personal protection, but there are many more illegal guns in circulation.<\/p>\n
Some 63 people were killed each day between April and September, according to police data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gunmen stormed an illegal bar in South Africa’s capital Pretoria, killing 12 people including a three-year-old boy, police…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-218953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115674108675183960","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}