South African Police Minister Bheki Cele said on Monday that police had found more than 130 empty AK-47 cartridges at the scene of an unexplained shooting that left 15 people dead and eight injured on Sunday in Johannesburg.
This means that the perpetrators of this shooting “were determined to kill”, the minister told community representatives and the media outside the bar where the shooting took place.
A group of men armed with 9mm rifles and pistols entered this bar in an informal community in Soweto on Sunday around 12:30 p.m. local time and began shooting randomly at patrons seated inside, killing 12 people on the spot and injuring 11 others, while three people later succumbed to their injuries, South African police said on Sunday.
Cele said he plans to deploy more police patrols and search for people with illegal firearms in the local community, adding that the finding “says a lot regarding the proliferation of illegal guns in this community”.
“Those who have illegal firearms must turn them over to the police before we collect them,” he said, also announcing more efficient police deployment and more accessible police in this region.
The motives for this shooting remain unexplained at this time.
