Three gunmen are the target of a manhunt by South African police after they burst into a house party late on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, in the Ziko area of KwaMakhutha township, south of Durban, and opened fire on the guests, killing 11 people and wounding three. As of September 28, police have reported no arrest and no named suspect, and no outcome of the 72-hour tracking operation ordered to run down the three gunmen.
The three armed men arrived shortly before 11 p.m. local time and opened fire on the guests in the small house in the Ziko area of KwaMakhutha, a township south of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal.
Fourteen people were inside the small house — 13 men and one woman believed to be pregnant. Ten died at the scene, and four others were taken to hospital, where one later died of their injuries.
Police and provincial officials gave the first details on Wednesday, September 23. KwaZulu-Natal Premier Thamsanqa Ntuli said the community had been left “in profound shock and grief.”
Manhunt for Three Gunmen
Local broadcaster eNCA reported that the attackers carried pistols and rifles and forced everyone into a single room before opening fire. A car belonging to one of the victims was set alight by the men as they fled, and investigators said they were examining whether that fire was connected to the shooting.
Stretcher crews carried the dead to pathology vans after Bodies had lain outside the house under sheets. Forensic teams combed the property while officers strung tape around the neighborhood.
Preliminary investigations found some of the victims had previously come to the attention of Crime Intelligence over suspected illegal activities, according to the provincial police spokesperson, Colonel Robert Netshiunda. Police declined to elaborate, citing the ongoing investigation, and added that a feud between rival groupings could not be ruled out. No arrests had been made as of Wednesday.
A 72-hour tracking operation to run down the three suspects was ordered by Acting National Police Commissioner Lt-Gen Puleng Dimpane, who directed the KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner to activate it. Dimpane said investigators were following a “promising lead.” Ntuli visited the scene and urged residents to come forward with anything that might help. He described a largely poor community with known drug-dealing and illegal-firearm problems, where homes stand a few meters apart with no fences between them.
Two More Weekend Attacks
Two further mass shootings struck South Africa on the night of Saturday, September 26, days after the KwaMakhutha attack. Police said 17 people were killed and at least 15 wounded when eight suspects armed with AK-47 rifles and pistols opened fire at a tavern in Wedela township, about 50 miles southwest of central Johannesburg. Gunmen killed 10 people and wounded 11 at a shisanyama entertainment venue in Lwandle, near Cape Town.
Police in Gauteng said on the morning of Sunday, September 27 that they had launched a manhunt for the eight unidentified suspects in the Wedela tavern shooting, with no arrests made in either weekend attack. Gauteng Police Commissioner Tommy Mthombeni told reporters one line of inquiry was that the shooting was a “turf war in terms of illegal mining,” and added it could be retaliation for another shooting at the same tavern about a month earlier.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking to local TV news channels about the two weekend shootings, said, “This cannot go on like this,” and “This is the level of criminality that we must bring down, and our security forces are now going to continue pulling out all stops.”
Among the World’s Highest Rates
Roughly 60 people are killed every day in a population of about 62 million, and South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world. Between April and June, SAPS recorded 5,427 homicides nationally, a 5.9 percent drop from the same period the year before but still an average of nearly 60 a day. An average of 58 a day was recorded in the January-to-March quarter. Guns account for most homicides, and police and researchers have long pointed to the sheer volume of illegal firearms in circulation.
In June, multiple shooters killed 12 people in an informal settlement in Cleveland, a Johannesburg suburb, and police tied the case to criminal gangs. Gunmen opened fire at a tavern outside Johannesburg about six months earlier, and nine people died. In a 2023 attack in KwaZulu-Natal, an entire family of 10 — including a 13-year-old boy — was gunned down at home.
Murder has run high in the country for decades, but the public now fears mass shootings linked to organized crime more acutely, and that fear is driving calls for the government to break up criminal networks — among them the contract-killing operations that security analysts consider a major driver of such attacks. Analysts also point to too few officers patrolling crime hot spots, a slow-moving justice system, and allegations — still under investigation — that senior police officials have ties to organized crime.
Ramaphosa called organized crime “the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development” in his February State of the Nation address, where he announced he would deploy the army to support police. The Western Cape and Gauteng received the first troops, and the Eastern Cape joined the list days afterward. The deployment left out KwaZulu-Natal, the province where Tuesday’s shooting took place. An ongoing judicial commission of inquiry is weighing allegations that Police Minister Senzo Mchunu interfered with organized-crime investigations, claims he denies; he has been on leave since mid-2025.