A mass shooting at a house party in South Africa kills 11, including a
pregnant woman
[September 23, 2026]
By GERALD IMRAY
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Three shooters killed at least 11 people
including a woman who was believed to be pregnant in a late-night attack
at a house party in South Africa, police said Wednesday.
Three others were wounded in the mass shooting Tuesday night in
KwaMakhutha township around 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of the city
of Durban on the east coast.
The people had gathered at the house for a party when the suspects
entered the house and opened fire, police said. Ten people, including
the pregnant woman, died at the scene and an 11th was declared dead at
the hospital.
Authorities did not immediately give out details on the condition of the
three people who were wounded.
Police are searching for the gunmen
Police said they were searching for three men and no arrests had been
made.
The motive for the shooting was not known, police said, but added that
some of the people at the house were known to police as part of
investigations into criminal activity. Police said they couldn't give
out any more information on those investigations.
"Although the motive of the shooting cannot be confirmed yet, (a) feud
between rival groupings cannot be ruled out," police said.
Thami Ntuli, the premier of KwaZulu-Natal province, told reporters at
the scene that the killings were “really disturbing.” He said that there
were known problems with drug dealing and illegal firearms in the
largely impoverished community.
There have been several mass shootings in South Africa recently
It's the latest in a series of mass shootings in South Africa recently,
including one in June when multiple shooters killed 12 people in a poor
neighborhood in Johannesburg that police linked to criminal gangs. Two
mass shootings two weeks apart in December killed 21 people. They were
also carried out by multiple gunmen.
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South Africa has extremely high rates of violent crime, with official
police statistics recording 5,427 homicides in the latest three-month
period between April and June at an average of nearly 60 homicides a
day.
Shootings are the most common form of homicide in South Africa and
police and crime experts have long said that one of the biggest problems
is that there is a high number of illegal firearms in circulation.
The army is being used to combat violent crime in some areas
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa authorized the deployment of
soldiers on the streets in some areas earlier this year to combat
violent crime in what critics said was an admission that police were
failing.
Soldiers were deployed to areas around Johannesburg, the city of Cape
Town and in Eastern Cape province on the south coast in the ongoing
operation, but not to KwaZulu-Natal province where the latest shooting
happened.
Bodies of victims were being carried away
The bodies of some of the victims of Tuesday night's shooting were laid
out on the ground and covered with white sheets outside the small house
where the shooting took place. They were later carried away on
stretchers to pathology vans.
Police cordoned off the neighborhood with yellow tape while forensic
investigators worked through the scene.
Police were also investigating if the torching of a car near the house
was connected to the shooting.
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