Nearly a week after three gunmen opened fire on a house party in the KwaMakhutha township south of Durban, killing 12 people, including a woman believed to be pregnant, South African police had reported no arrests, named no suspects and announced no outcome of the 72-hour tracking operation ordered after the killings.
Three armed men arrived at the house in the Ziko area of KwaMakhutha, in KwaZulu-Natal, shortly before 11 p.m. local time on Tuesday, Sept. 22, and opened fire on the guests. Fourteen people were inside the small house — 13 men and one woman believed to be pregnant. Ten died at the scene, and four others were taken to hospital; two of them later died, bringing the toll to 12 by Friday, Sept. 25. Two people survived with wounds.
Police and provincial officials gave the first details on Wednesday, Sept. 23. KwaZulu-Natal Premier Thamsanqa Ntuli said the community had been left “in profound shock and grief.”
Manhunt for Three Gunmen
South African police have launched a manhunt for the three gunmen. Acting National Police Commissioner Lt-Gen Puleng Dimpane ordered the KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner to activate a 72-hour tracking operation to run down the three suspects, and police said investigators were following a “promising lead.”
Some of the victims had already drawn the attention of Crime Intelligence over suspected illegal activities, according to preliminary investigations described by provincial police spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda. Police declined to elaborate, citing the ongoing investigation, and added that a feud between rival groupings could not be ruled out. Relatives have rejected that suggestion. “I don’t know any of them to be involved in anything dodgy,” Nomusa Zulu, whose sons Scelo and Mlungisi were among the dead, told Eyewitness News.
The attackers, at least one of them armed with an AK-47 rifle, herded everyone into a single room and then opened fire, and as they fled, they torched a car that belonged to one of the victims. Investigators said they were examining whether that fire was connected to the shooting.
Sheets covered the bodies where they lay outside the house until stretcher crews carried them to pathology vans. Officers strung tape around the neighborhood while forensic teams combed the property.
Ntuli visited the scene and urged residents to come forward with anything that might help, pointing to known problems with drug dealing and illegal firearms in the largely poor community. Some of its homes stand just a few meters apart, with no fences between them.
Two More Mass Shootings
Two further mass shootings struck South Africa over the weekend of Sept. 26 and 27, days after the KwaMakhutha attack. Police said 17 people were killed and at least 15 wounded when eight suspects armed with AK-47 rifles and pistols opened fire at a tavern in Wedela township, near Carletonville, southwest of Johannesburg; the toll later rose to 18. Ten people were killed and 11 wounded at a shisanyama entertainment venue in Lwandle, near Cape Town, where police cited a business rivalry as a possible motive.
Police in Gauteng said on the morning of Sunday, Sept. 27 they had launched a manhunt for the eight unidentified suspects in the Wedela tavern shooting, with no arrests made in either weekend attack. Gauteng police commissioner Tommy Mthombeni told reporters one line of inquiry was that the shooting was a “turf war in terms of illegal mining,” and added it could be retaliation for another shooting at the same tavern about a month earlier.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking to local TV news channels about the two weekend shootings, said: “This cannot go on like this.” He added, “This is the level of criminality that we must bring down, and our security forces are now going to continue pulling out all stops.” On Monday he said, “We cannot be a country where people just pick up guns and start shooting at people at random,” The Citizen reported.
Killings Across South Africa
Roughly 60 people are killed every day in a population of about 63.5 million, and South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world. The South African Police Service (SAPS) recorded 5,427 homicides nationally between April and June — a 5.9 percent drop from the same period the year before. That total still works out to an average of nearly 60 a day, and the January-to-March quarter averaged 58 a day. Guns are used in most homicides, and the sheer volume of illegal firearms in circulation is something police and researchers have long pointed to.
In June, multiple shooters killed 12 people in an informal settlement in Cleveland, a Johannesburg suburb, and police tied the case to criminal gangs. In December 2025, gunmen killed 12 people at an illegal drinking spot in Saulsville, near Pretoria, and 10 at a tavern in Bekkersdal, west of Johannesburg. An entire family of 10 — including a 13-year-old boy — was gunned down at home near Pietermaritzburg in a 2023 attack in KwaZulu-Natal.
High murder rates are nothing new for the country, but mass shootings tied to organized crime now frighten the public more sharply and are driving calls for the government to dismantle criminal networks, including contract-killing operations that security analysts consider a major driver of such attacks. Analysts additionally cite thin policing of crime hot spots, a justice system that moves slowly, and allegations — still under investigation — that senior police officials have ties to organized crime.
Ramaphosa called organized crime “the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development” in his February State of the Nation address, in which he announced he would deploy the army to support police. He named the Western Cape and Gauteng, the Eastern Cape was added days later, and the final authorization in March sent 2,200 soldiers to five provinces — the Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, North West and Western Cape. KwaZulu-Natal, where the KwaMakhutha shooting took place, was not included.
A judicial commission of inquiry, whose deadline has been extended a final time to January 2027, is still examining allegations that Police Minister Senzo Mchunu interfered with organized-crime investigations, a claim he denies. Mchunu has been on special leave since July 2025, and Firoz Cachalia is serving as acting police minister.