Police are on the hunt for suspects after nine people were fatally shot in separate shooting incidents in two South African provinces on Saturday night, police said on Sunday.
The latest spate of shootings comes on the heels of a spike in violent deaths in a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world.
Four people were shot and two more were injured in the Thembelihle informal settlement in Gauteng province. Preliminary investigation suggests a group of men were playing craps on a street corner at approximately 7:30 p.m. (5:30 p.m. GMT) on Saturday when they were attacked by unknown assailants who shot at them, authorities said in a statement. a statement.
“Four people were certified dead at the scene on Saturday, while two people were taken to the nearest medical facility after sustaining gunshot wounds,” police said.
In a separate incident also in Thembelihle, south of Johannesburg, a 36-year-old man whose belongings were apparently stolen, including a cell phone and a bicycle, was found shot to death, they added.
Police said the motive for the shooting cannot be confirmed at this stage.
Meanwhile, in Western Cape province, police have launched an investigation into the circumstances of a triple murder last night in Khayelitsha township. A fourth was an unrelated incident, Colonel Andrê Traut said.
On Friday, eight suspects linked to the separate “random” shootings and robberies of six people Thursday night in Johannesburg’s Alexandra township were arrested, authorities said.
It was not yet clear if the suspects in the Alexandra shooting were in the same group that carried out all the killings.
Around 20,000 people are killed in South Africa each year out of a population of around 60 million.
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