Eleven people were killed and three wounded when three gunmen opened fire on a house party in KwaMakhutha township’s Ziko area, south of Durban, late on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, and South African police are now hunting the attackers. Fourteen people — 13 men and one woman believed to be pregnant — were inside the small house when the three armed men arrived shortly before 11 p.m. local time and began shooting, police and provincial officials said as they set out the first details on Wednesday, September 23. Ten of the guests died at the scene, and one of the four taken to hospital later died of their injuries. KwaZulu-Natal Premier Thamsanqa Ntuli said the community had been left “in profound shock and grief.”
What Investigators Found
The attackers carried pistols and rifles, forced everyone into a single room and then began shooting. A car belonging to one of the victims was set alight by the gunmen before they fled, and police said they were examining whether that fire was connected to the shooting. Sheets covered the bodies outside the house until stretcher crews lifted them into pathology vans. Forensic teams went over the property while other officers ran tape around the neighborhood. Some of the victims had previously come to the attention of Crime Intelligence over suspected illegal activities, Colonel Robert Netshiunda, the provincial police spokesperson, said, pointing to preliminary investigations. Police declined to elaborate, citing the ongoing investigation, and added that a feud between rival groupings could not be ruled out.
A 72-Hour Manhunt
By Wednesday, no arrests had been made. The KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner was ordered by Acting National Police Commissioner Lt-Gen Puleng Dimpane to activate a tracking operation lasting 72 hours to run down the three suspects, and Dimpane said investigators were following a “promising lead.” Ntuli, who visited the scene, urged residents to come forward with anything that might help. Drug-dealing and illegal firearms are known problems in the largely poor community he described, where the homes stand a few meters apart with no fences between them.
A Pattern of Mass Shootings
South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world, with roughly 60 people killed every day in a population of about 62 million. SAPS recorded 5,427 homicides nationally between April and June, a 5.9 percent drop from the same period the year before. That still works out to an average of nearly 60 a day, and the daily average for the January-to-March quarter was 58. Most homicides are committed with guns, and police and researchers have long pointed to the sheer volume of illegal firearms in circulation.
A string of similar attacks preceded the Durban-area killings. Multiple shooters killed 12 people in June in an informal settlement in Cleveland, a Johannesburg suburb, in a case police tied to criminal gangs. Last year, nine people were killed in a mass shooting at a tavern in Johannesburg. An entire family of 10 — including a 13-year-old boy — was gunned down at home in a 2023 attack in KwaZulu-Natal.
A Broader Security Crisis
The murder rate has run high for decades, but mass shootings tied to organized crime have become a sharper source of public fear, feeding demands that the government dismantle criminal networks — among them the contract-killing operations that security analysts regard as a major driver of such attacks. Analysts also point to too few officers patrolling crime hot spots and a slow-moving justice system, along with allegations, still under investigation, that senior police officials have ties to organized crime.
President Cyril Ramaphosa used his February State of the Nation address to announce that he would deploy the army in support of police, calling organized crime “the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development.” The Western Cape and Gauteng received the first troops, and the Eastern Cape was added days later. That deployment did not include KwaZulu-Natal, where Tuesday’s shooting took place. Separately, Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has been on leave since mid-2025 while an ongoing judicial commission of inquiry examines allegations that he interfered with organized-crime investigations, which he denies.
The three gunmen were still at large as of Wednesday, September 23, with no one in custody.
