Around 10 attackers were driven to the Jumpers settlement and dropped off before storming the area
\nJOHANNESBURG
\nGunmen stormed an informal settlement near Johannesburg and shot dead 12 people overnight, South African police said Wednesday, in the latest mass shooting in the crime-weary country.
\nThe shootings happened before midnight on Tuesday in an impoverished area of metal shacks near where illegal miners were living, police said.
\nAround 10 attackers were driven to the Jumpers settlement and dropped off before storming the area, a police spokeswoman said.
\n\u201cThe suspects allegedly entered the informal settlement through both entrances and moved through the area, opening fire on residents and community members at multiple locations before fleeing the scene in the same vehicle,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cPreliminary investigations reveal that 12 people died as a result of the attack,\u201d Colonel Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi said.
\n\u201cEight adult males and three adult females were declared dead at the scene,\u201d she said. One person died in the hospital.
\nIllegal mining
\nThe attack was in an area about six kilometres (less than four miles) east of the Johannesburg city centre and near an abandoned gold mine.
\nSouth Africa is awash with legal and illegal firearms, and shootings are common, often fuelled by gang rivalry and competition between informal businesses.
\nPolice said the motive for the attack was not yet known and no arrests had been made but there were suspicions it was related to competition over illegal mining in the area.
\n\u201cAt this stage, we could not determine what is the motive,\u201d provincial commissioner Lieutenant General Tommy Mthombeni told reporters at the scene.
\n\u201cAs you know, this area is adjacent to the legal mining area. We are having those suspicions.\u201d
\n\u201cOne can term this incident to be insane, to be heartless and to an extent, it is barbaric,\u201d he said.
\nIllegal mining in South Africa draws people from across southern Africa and has been linked to organised crime, assassinations, extortion and other illegal activities.
\nClandestine artisanal miners have become an entrenched presence in the shantytowns that ring Johannesburg and its satellite settlements along the gold reef.
\nDriven by poverty and unemployment, the zama zamas \u2014 which means \u201cthose who try\u201d in the Zulu language \u2014 descend deep into still gold-bearing shafts abandoned by mining companies.
\nIn a mass shooting linked to rivalry between illegal mining gangs, nine people were killed in December when gunmen opened fire at a bar in the impoverished Bekkersdal township southwest of Johannesburg and in another gold-mining area.
\nIn March, soldiers moved into violence hotspots in Johannesburg to support police efforts to tackle rampant crime, described by President Cyril Ramaphosa as one of the biggest threats facing the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Around 10 attackers were driven to the Jumpers settlement and dropped off before storming the area JOHANNESBURG Gunmen stormed an informal settlement near Johannesburg and shot dead 12 people overnight, South African police said Wednesday, in the latest mass shooting in the crime-weary country. The shootings happened before midnight on Tuesday in an impoverished area …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":98896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98915,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98905\/revisions\/98915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}