South Africa fatal mass shooting leaves 11 dead including three children

A mass shooting at a bar left at least 11 people, including three children, dead in a township near the South African administrative capital of Pretoria, police said on Saturday.

The shooting happened at an unlicensed bar in the Saulsville township west of Pretoria in the early hours of Saturday. Local media reported the bar was inside a hostel.

The children killed were a 3-year-old boy, a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl. Police said they were searching for three suspects.

Another 14 people were wounded and taken to the hospital, according to a statement from the South African Police Services.

Police didn’t give details on the ages of those who were injured.

The attack is the latest in a string of mass shootings that have shocked the crime's weary country of 63 million people, which suffers one of the highest murder rates in the world.

"I can confirm that a total of 25 people were shot," police spokeswoman Athlenda Mathe said, adding that 14 had been taken to hospital. Ten had died at the scene in Saulsville township, 18 kilometres west of Pretoria, while another died in hospital, she said.

Three gunmen entered what Mathe described as an "illegal shebeen" within the hostel at around 4:30am and indiscriminately fired at a group of men who were drinking.

"Quite an unfortunate incident. Police were only alerted to this incident at around 6 o'clock," said Mathe. Police said the motive was unknown and no arrests had been made, with a manhunt under way. "We are having a serious challenge when it comes to these illegal and unlicensed liquor premises," Mathe said, adding that they are where most mass shootings occur. "Innocent people also get caught up in the crossfire," she told public broadcaster SABC.

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.

Agencies