South African police have raised the counts on the case docket in a mass shooting at a township bar west of Johannesburg to 18 counts of murder, 18 counts of attempted murder, two counts of malicious damage to property and armed robbery, according to a report published Monday, Sept. 28, 2026.
Only four of the 18 people killed at the bar in Wedela had been identified as of Monday, Sept. 28, police said — two South Africans and two Lesotho nationals.
Gunmen opened fire at the bar in Wedela, a semi-rural township in the Carletonville area, southwest of Johannesburg, at around 9:30 p.m. local time Saturday, Sept. 26. The attack wounded at least 15.
Police said 17 people were killed at the scene — 13 men and four women — and that an 18th victim later died in hospital. Police said the attackers carried AK-47 rifles and pistols.
Manhunt for Eight Gunmen
South African police have launched a manhunt for eight gunmen. According to police, the gunmen first targeted customers drinking outside the bar, then walked inside and kept shooting. The attack lasted long enough for the assailants to move from the patio to the interior and back out again. Before fleeing, the attackers set two vehicles alight.
“They allegedly searched some patrons and took their cellphones before fleeing the scene in two unidentified motor vehicles,” the South African Police Service said, in a report published Sept. 28.
Forensic officers and army troops were deployed to the bar in the hours after the shooting. Plainclothes officers examined the burnt-out cars left behind.
Second Attack Near Cape Town
Hours later, in the early hours of Sunday, Sept. 27, gunmen struck an entertainment venue in a township outside Cape Town, killing 10 people and wounding 11. Five of those victims were declared dead at the scene; the others died of their injuries on the way to a hospital or after arriving.
The two attacks together have left at least 28 dead. As of Tuesday, Sept. 29, police had made no arrests in either shooting, and all eight Wedela suspects remained at large, Reuters reported. Police were still searching for the Cape Town-area gunmen as of Monday, Oct. 5, the Daily Voice reported. A separate shooting in Khayelitsha on the evening of Saturday, Sept. 26, killed four more people, and police said at the time that no suspect had been identified or arrested, according to eNCA.
Questions Over a Motive
Police have not confirmed a motive in the Wedela attack. Gauteng police commissioner Tommy Mthombeni said one line of inquiry is a “turf war in terms of illegal mining,” and investigators are also examining possible retaliation for an August shooting at the same tavern. The Guardian described the attack as a suspected “illegal goldmining turf war.”
Investigators are seeking eight suspects in Wedela and an unknown number of suspects in the Cape Town-area attack. They have two torched vehicles as physical evidence and dozens of wounded survivors whose accounts will shape what detectives can build.
The scale of the Wedela attack alone would have made it one of the deadliest single shootings South Africa has seen this year.
A Country Awash in Guns
South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world, and authorities have struggled for years to contain gang-related gun violence. Illegal weapons are widespread, and roughly 60 murders are recorded every day in a country of about 63.5 million people. The toll is so steady that individual killings rarely register beyond the communities that absorb them.
What has changed, and what has alarmed officials and residents, is the frequency of attacks that kill in double digits. The recent run of mass shootings has raised fears that the problem is deepening.
The violence is often linked to turf wars between gangs involved in drug trafficking and illegal mining. Illegal mining is a persistent scourge around the gold belt west of Johannesburg, where disused shafts and informal operations have drawn armed groups. Earlier in 2026, the government deployed the military alongside police in the areas with the highest murder rates to try to bring armed violence down. Soldiers were among those posted at the Wedela bar after the Sept. 26 shooting.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, in February 2026, described organized crime as “the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development.”
Days earlier, on Tuesday, Sept. 22, three gunmen opened fire at a house party in KwaMakhutha township near Durban, killing 11 people, including a pregnant woman. The death toll from that attack has since risen to 12, according to eNCA.
