South Africa is reeling from a spate of mass shootings. What’s behind the sudden spike?

After five shootings in less than a week left at least 46 people dead, South Africa is wrestling with how to tackle a spike in gun crime that threatens to undo recent progress in reducing its notoriously high murder rate.

Even in a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world, the scale of the killings in such a short space of time has provoked shock. Experts blame two things: organized crime and the easy availability of illegal firearms.

“South Africa is awash with guns,” said Julian Rademeyer, adviser to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), which tracks organized crime.

That was laid bare by the bullet casings that lay strewn on the ground after eight gunmen armed with AK-47 rifles and pistols opened fire at a tavern in Wedela, an area west of Johannesburg known for illegal mining, last Saturday night, killing 18 people . Hours after that incident, another 10 people were killed in Lwandle near Cape Town.

Esa Alexander/Reuters

“The weapon matters,” according to Stanley Maphosa, executive director of Gun Free South Africa, a nonprofit focused on reducing gun violence. He said the availability of firearms can turn conflicts involving organized crime, extortion, gangs, revenge, taxi violence or personal disputes into attacks that kill many people.

Official police figures show South Africa’s murder rate fell to 41 per 100,000 people in the 12 months to March 31, 2025, compared with 44.7 in the previous year. The decline has continued, with fewer murders recorded between January to March and April to June than in the same periods a year earlier.

Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia has said recent efforts, including targeted police operations and closer cooperation between agencies, may be helping, while cautioning that more study is needed to understand why murders are falling.

What has stood out is the frequency of mass killings, even as murders overall fall. Rademeyer said the attacks themselves are not new, but they appear to be increasing.

South Africa police hunt suspects after three shootings leave more than 30 people dead

The attacks have also left some communities anxious about further violence. Residents near the tavern west of Johannesburg told Reuters they feared more attacks, with some saying they no longer felt safe carrying out ordinary errands.

GI-TOC recorded 45 mass killings between January 1 and September 28 this year, killing at least 210 people and wounding 79 others.

It classifies an incident as a mass killing when at least three people are intentionally killed in a single attack. Four of the five shootings last month meet that definition.

GI-TOC recorded one mass killing in January and one in February. By June, the monthly count had reached eight, with eight also recorded in August and September. The September attacks alone killed 57 people.

GI-TOC does not have a reliable comparison with last year, according to Rademeyer. He said the group counted 17 mass killings in 2025, but warned that this was an undercount because it only began tracking them separately this year and has since stepped up its data collection.

There’s no single explanation. Rademeyer said mass killings occur across criminal markets, including illegal mining, extortion, gang activity and disputes over minibus-taxi routes. Organized crime accounts for a minority of gun deaths but is associated with some of the deadliest attacks, he said.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said in February that organized crime was “the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development” and announced that soldiers would be deployed to help police tackle gang violence.

There’s no indication that the five most recent shootings, including two in the Cape Town area and one south of the city of Durban, are linked. Investigators are considering different possible motives, including criminal feuds, retaliation and a business dispute.

Rajesh Jantilal/AFP/Getty Images

The deadliest of the five was the Johannesburg tavern shooting last Saturday and police are investigating whether that was linked to a turf war involving illegal mining or retaliation for an earlier shooting at the same tavern.

Illegal mining has fueled violence around Johannesburg for years. Informal miners, known locally as “zama zamas,” work in abandoned gold mines, while rival groups fight for control of the business. Around Wedela, Reuters reported that criminal gangs run the operations and use armed men to protect their territory.

GI-TOC has documented weapons moving from neighboring Namibia into South Africa and reaching gangs and robbers involved in cash-in-transit heists.

Maphosa said illegal guns can also come from weapons stolen or lost by civilians and the state, as well as through corruption and cross-border trafficking.

“An AK-47 does not arrive at a tavern by itself,” he said. “There is a supply chain behind the firearm and ammunition.”

About 63,500 licensed civilian firearms were reported lost or stolen between 2013 and 2023, according to figures Rademeyer cited.

Emmanuel Croset/AFP/Getty Images

He also cited police data showing that since April 2022, 2,346 police firearms have been stolen and another 177 lost, along with 194,920 rounds of ammunition.

Former police colonel Christiaan Prinsloo was convicted in 2016 after stealing more than 2,000 firearms from police stores and selling them on, including to gangs. According to local media reports, 888 of those weapons were later forensically linked to 1,066 murders in the Western Cape.

Operation Vala Umgodi, the government’s crackdown on illegal mining, has led to thousands of arrests and the seizure of hundreds of firearms.

But Rademeyer said arresting large numbers of low-level participants will have limited impact if the people financing and supplying the networks remain untouched.

Police should also target buyers and refiners of illicit gold, financiers and gun suppliers, he said.

Rademeyer said police should trace recovered guns, clear the ballistics backlog and investigate non-fatal shootings, which can be warnings of more violence.

But tracing where guns came from and whether they have been used in other crimes is time-consuming. The head of ballistics at the police’s Forensic Science Laboratory told a Commission of Inquiry last year that the unit had a backlog of 41,846 cases and more than 29,000 crime-linked firearms in storage.

Maphosa said authorities need to look beyond recovering illegal guns and focus on stopping them from reaching criminal networks in the first place.

“We are counting the guns coming out,” he said. “We must also count, trace and stop the guns going in.

“The real measure of success is how many people we prevent from being shot.”

不到一周内发生五起枪击事件，造成至少 46 人死亡，南非正努力应对枪支犯罪激增的问题，这可能会使该国在降低其臭名昭著的高谋杀率方面取得的近期进展付之东流。

即使在世界上谋杀率最高的国家之一，如此短时间内发生的大规模杀戮也令人震惊。专家认为，造成这种情况的原因有两个：有组织犯罪和非法枪支的易得性。

“南非枪支泛滥，”打击跨国有组织犯罪全球倡议组织（GI-TOC）顾问朱利安·拉德迈耶说，该组织负责追踪有组织犯罪。

上周六晚，在约翰内斯堡以西以非法采矿闻名的韦德拉地区，八名持AK-47步枪和手枪的枪手在一家小酒馆开火，造成18人死亡。事后散落在地上的弹壳清楚地表明了这一点。数小时后，在开普敦附近的卢安德勒，又有10人丧生。

埃萨·亚历山大/路透社

“武器至关重要，”致力于减少枪支暴力的非营利组织“南非无枪联盟”（Gun Free South Africa）的执行主任斯坦利·马普霍萨（Stanley Maphosa）表示。他说，枪支的易得性可能使涉及有组织犯罪、敲诈勒索、帮派、复仇、出租车暴力或个人纠纷的冲突演变成造成多人死亡的袭击。

官方警方数据显示，截至2025年3月31日的12个月内，南非的谋杀率降至每10万人41起，而上一年为44.7起。这一下降趋势仍在继续，今年1月至3月和4月至6月记录的谋杀案数量均低于上年同期。

代理警察部长菲罗兹·卡查利亚表示，近期采取的措施，包括有针对性的警务行动和各机构之间更紧密的合作，可能正在发挥作用，但他同时警告说，还需要进行更多研究来了解谋杀案数量下降的原因。

引人注目的是，尽管谋杀案总数有所下降，但大规模屠杀事件的发生频率却在上升。拉德迈耶表示，袭击本身并非新鲜事，但似乎正在增加。

南非警方正在追捕三起枪击案的嫌疑人，这三起枪击案已造成30多人死亡。

这些袭击事件也让一些社区对进一步的暴力事件感到担忧。约翰内斯堡西部一家酒馆附近的居民告诉路透社，他们担心会发生更多袭击，一些人表示，他们现在连出门办事都感到不安全了。

GI-TOC 记录显示，今年 1 月 1 日至 9 月 28 日期间发生了 45 起大规模屠杀事件，造成至少 210 人死亡，79 人受伤。

该定义将至少三人在一次袭击中被蓄意杀害的事件定性为大规模杀戮事件。上个月发生的五起枪击事件中有四起符合这一定义。

GI-TOC记录显示，1月份和2月份分别发生了一起大规模杀戮事件。到6月份，月度统计数量达到8起，8月和9月也分别记录了8起。仅9月份的袭击就造成57人死亡。

拉德迈耶表示，GI-TOC目前没有与去年进行可靠比较的数据。他说，该组织统计到2025年发生了17起大规模杀戮事件，但他警告说，这个数字被低估了，因为该组织今年才开始单独追踪这些事件，并且此后加大了数据收集力度。

没有单一的解释。拉德迈耶表示，大规模杀戮事件发生在各种犯罪市场，包括非法采矿、敲诈勒索、帮派活动以及小巴出租车路线纠纷。他说，有组织犯罪虽然只占枪支死亡事件的一小部分，但却与一些最致命的袭击事件有关。

西里尔·拉马福萨总统在二月份表示，有组织犯罪是“对我们的民主、社会和经济发展最直接的威胁”，并宣布将部署士兵协助警方打击帮派暴力。

目前没有迹象表明最近发生的五起枪击事件（包括两起发生在开普敦地区和一起发生在德班市南部）彼此有关联。调查人员正在考虑各种可能的作案动机，包括犯罪团伙仇杀、报复和商业纠纷。

Rajesh Jantilal/AFP/Getty Images

五起枪击案中最致命的是上周六发生在约翰内斯堡一家酒馆的枪击案，警方正在调查这起枪击案是否与非法采矿引发的地盘争夺有关，还是对之前在同一家酒馆发生的枪击案的报复。

多年来，非法采矿一直是约翰内斯堡周边暴力事件频发的根源。当地被称为“zama zamas”的非正规矿工在废弃的金矿中作业，而敌对团伙则为争夺矿场控制权而互相厮杀。路透社报道称，在韦德拉附近，犯罪团伙控制着矿场作业，并雇佣武装人员保护其地盘。

GI-TOC 记录了武器从邻国纳米比亚流入南非，并落入参与运钞车抢劫案的团伙和劫匪手中的情况。

马普霍萨表示，非法枪支也可能来自平民和国家被盗或丢失的武器，以及通过腐败和跨境贩运获得。

他说：“AK-47步枪不会自己出现在酒吧里。枪支弹药的来源是有供应链的。”

根据拉德迈耶引用的数据，2013 年至 2023 年间，约有 63,500 支合法民用枪支被报告丢失或被盗。

伊曼纽尔·克罗塞特/法新社/盖蒂图片社

他还引用警方数据表明，自 2022 年 4 月以来，已有 2346 支警用枪支被盗，另有 177 支警用枪支丢失，以及 194920 发子弹丢失。

前警官克里斯蒂安·普林斯卢于2016年被判有罪，罪名是他从警察仓库盗窃了2000多支枪支并出售，其中包括卖给犯罪团伙。据当地媒体报道，其中888支枪支后来经法医鉴定与西开普省的1066起谋杀案有关。

政府开展的打击非法采矿的“瓦拉·乌姆戈迪行动”已导致数千人被捕，数百支枪支被缴获。

但拉德迈耶表示，如果资助和供应这些网络的人员不受影响，那么逮捕大量低级别参与者将会产生有限的影响。

他还表示，警方还应将打击非法黄金买家和提炼者、金融家和枪支供应商作为目标。

拉德迈耶表示，警方应该追踪缴获的枪支，清理弹道学积压案件，并调查非致命枪击事件，因为这些事件可能是更多暴力事件的预兆。

但追踪枪支来源以及它们是否曾用于其他犯罪活动非常耗时。警方法医科学实验室弹道学负责人去年在一次调查委员会会议上表示，该部门积压了41846起案件，并储存了超过29000支与犯罪有关的枪支。

马普霍萨表示，当局需要关注的不仅仅是缴获非法枪支，更应该从源头上阻止非法枪支流入犯罪网络。

他说：“我们正在统计流出的枪支数量。我们也必须统计、追踪并阻止流入的枪支数量。”

“衡量成功的真正标准是我们阻止了多少人被枪杀。”