Ramaphosa vows crackdown after two shootings near Johannesburg and Cape Town leave 27 dead

South African police were on Sunday hunting the perpetrators of two separate shootings that killed 27 people within hours of each other.

The attacks came only days after another shooting killed 11 people at a house party near Durban, Xolani Nhlapo and Esa Alexander, reporting for Reuters.

Authorities were still working to establish motives, but initial investigations suggested that one attack could be a turf war between illegal miners and the other a business rivalry. President Cyril Ramaphosa told local media channels that the situation could not go on.

He said the level of criminality had to be brought down and that the security forces would continue to pull out all the stops.

In Wedela township, about 80km from Johannesburg, 17 people were killed and 15 injured on Saturday evening when suspects armed with AK-47 rifles opened fire at a tavern, police said. Ramaphosa said police had images of the suspects and were working to track them down.

Reuters reported that residents were reluctant to speak about the incident, but one said illegal miners, known as zama zamas, live in the area, where gangs control the illicit gold-mining trade and are known to guard their shafts with military-grade weapons.

Lesotho-based gangs are known to be active in the trade, the agency noted, in which migrants from other African countries are often exploited for labour and spend months underground searching abandoned industrial mine shafts for scraps of gold.

A witness, Siyabonga Vokwana, said he was in the tavern when eight people wearing balaclavas and jackets from Lesotho came in and began checking who was there before opening fire. The provincial police commissioner, Tommy Mthombeni, told reporters that one line of inquiry was a turf war over illegal mining, and that Saturday’s shooting could be retaliation for another at the same tavern about a month ago.

He said the victims had not all been identified but included South Africans and Lesotho nationals, and that an Ethiopian was among the wounded.

In Lwandle, on the outskirts of Cape Town, gunmen opened fire at a venue where people were drinking at about 2am on Sunday, killing 10 people and injuring 11, Reuters reported.

Eyewitness video shows people dancing and singing in a crowded outdoor area before a burst of shots is heard. A witness, Kamvalethu Galada, told Reuters that she first thought the noise was fireworks and carried on dancing until everyone dropped to the ground.

A police official said business jealousy might have been behind the attack, as there were reports that people had been buying alcohol at cheaper places and then going to the venue to drink. No arrests had been made, police said.

Violent crime is rife in South Africa despite efforts to curb one of the world’s highest per-capita murder rates, police crime stats show.

Crime is expected to be a major issue for voters in municipal elections in November, when the African National Congress faces further erosion of support. Fear and anger over high rates of femicide have also risen after the discovery of women’s bodies near Johannesburg since July.

Ramaphosa said earlier this year that organised crime had become the biggest threat to the country’s democracy, and he deployed the army to help police in some areas.

Crime expert Yusuf Abramjee has said that South Africa is flooded with illegal weapons, which is part of the problem, and that authorities need to look at the wider networks behind the violence.