CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Gunmen broke into a room at a men’s hostel near the city of Durban in eastern South Africa, killing eight people and injuring two others, police said on Sunday in the latest mass shooting in the country.
Seven men were pronounced dead immediately after the shooting in the pre-dawn hours on Saturday in Umlazi township. An eighth man died on Sunday, police said.
Two others are hospitalized with injuries, including a man who jumped out of the inn’s bedroom window to escape the gunfire. Police said 12 men were in the room drinking alcohol when numerous armed men broke in, shot them and then fled.
Two of the men in the room are unharmed.
South Africa is among the 10 countries with the highest homicide rates in the world and there has been a string of mass shootings in recent years. At least two mass shootings were reported earlier this year.
A child was among 10 family members who were killed in a home in April. Eight were shot at a birthday party in January.
Last year, 22 people were killed in one weekend in three separate shootings at bars in different parts of the country.
South Africa has relatively strict gun laws but has serious problems with illegal firearms, police and community activists say.
An average of 30 people a day were killed by firearms in South Africa in the first three months of this year, according to official crime statistics. During the same three months, the police recorded more than 4,000 cases of illegal possession of weapons or ammunition.
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