Four people have been killed and eight injured in a bar in eastern South Africa after two men fired indiscriminately at customers, police said, the same night a shooting at a bar in Soweto left 15 dead.
Police were trying to verify whether the attacks were related, they said, and noted their similarity.
In the town of Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal province on Saturday night, two entered the bar and “randomly threw customers” before fleeing, local police spokesman Nqobile Gwala said. .
“A total of 12 people were shot. Two people were pronounced dead at the scene and the other two died at the hospital,” he said.
“Eight more people remain in hospital after suffering injuries.”
The dead were between 30 and 45 years old.
The attack took place around 8.30pm in a tavern in a semi-rural area 20 kilometers from Pietermaritzburg in the east of the country, near a car wash and a liquor store, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.
The mayor, Mzimkhulu Thebola, said the assault ended very quickly with no theft, conversation or fight.
“Every week we get news from people who just shot at random,” he said.
Bloodstains were seen on the floor in front of the bar.
In Soweto hours later, gunmen killed 15 people and wounded eight in a shooting at a tavern in a municipality near Johannesburg.
A police investigator and forensic personnel at the scene of the shooting at the Soweto bar. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee / AFP / Getty Images
According to witnesses, the victims had been shot at random while drinking.
“When we arrived at the scene, 12 people died from gunshot wounds,” said police officer Nonhlanhla Kubheka.
Eleven people were taken to hospital, and three later succumbed to their injuries. The dead were between 19 and 35 years old and include two women, said provincial police chief Elias Mawela.
There were no details about the assailants, he said, and forensic police were still gathering evidence.
The two deadly attacks came two weeks after the mysterious deaths of 22 people, mostly teenagers, in still unclear circumstances at a borough in the borough last month in the city of south east London.