The wave of mass shootings sweeping South Africa has triggered a fierce political reaction, with the EFF becoming the latest party to demand urgent state intervention after 18 people were killed in a tavern massacre in Wedela on the West Rand.
At least 18 people are now confirmed dead and 18 others injured after heavily armed gunmen stormed a tavern in Wedela township near Carletonville on Friday evening.
Gauteng police say the attackers were armed with AK-47 rifles and pistols, opened fire indiscriminately, and fled in getaway vehicles.
Gauteng Provincial Commissioner Lieutenant General Tommy Mthombeni has since established a multidisciplinary team of murder and robbery detectives, crime intelligence and crime scene experts to investigate the killings. Charges now include 18 counts of murder, 18 counts of attempted murder, two counts of malicious damage to property and armed robbery.
“No arrests have been made at this stage,” police spokesperson Brigadier Brenda Muridili confirmed. Of the 18 deceased, only four have been identified – two South Africans and two Lesotho nationals. Five of the injured remain critically wounded after being shot in the upper body.
The EFF on Monday said the Wedela killings cannot be treated as an isolated incident, linking the massacre to the criminal economy around illegal mining in Carletonville.
“This latest massacre cannot be treated as an isolated incident. The Carletonville area has previously been affected by serious violent crime associated with illegal mining,” the party said.
The EFF cited the June mass shooting at the Jumpers informal settlement where 12 people were killed, and the recent police killing of an alleged illegal mining kingpin who reportedly pointed an AK-47 at officers.
The party said the incidents demonstrate “the deadly intersection between illegal mining, organised criminality, the proliferation of illegal firearms and the inability of the state to establish effective control.”
The Red Berets warned that the crisis is national.
In KwaZulu-Natal, 12 people, including a pregnant woman, were shot dead at a party in KwaMakhutha last week. In the Western Cape, 14 people were killed in two separate shootings in Lwandle and Khayelitsha over the same weekend.
“This is not a normal state of affairs. While communities bury their loved ones, the state continues to respond to mass killings after they have already occurred,” the EFF said.
“The EFF rejects a policing model that is largely reactive, arriving at crime scenes to count bodies instead of preventing criminals from acquiring military-grade weapons.”
The party has called for a specialised national task force against mass shootings and organised gun violence, and the intensification of operations against illegal mining syndicates, including their financial networks and weapons suppliers.
The ANC in Parliament has also expressed alarm, but struck a different tone, calling for community cooperation and moral renewal.
ANC MP Samuel Moela said the random mass shootings are a cause for concern, pointing to the circulation of illegal firearms.
“It shows very much that the issue that we always talk about of the circulation of guns in South Africa is that we need to have stricter regulations in terms of how the gun is circulating across our society,” Moela said.
“We also need to have a deeper moral regeneration. Our society really, really needed divine intervention because this mass shooting cannot be an issue that is addressed by the police alone.”
Activists and community forums have echoed the outrage, with the VN Activists and Citizens Forum adding its voice to calls for tighter gun control.
The political fallout comes as police intensify operations in Wedela under Operation Prosper, which includes the SANDF and specialised SAPS units such as the Tactical Response Team and Public Order Policing.
The EFF also linked the mass shooting crisis to the broader failure to protect women, noting that another woman’s body was found in an open veld in Springs on Sunday, bringing to 11 the number of women’s bodies found in different parts of Ekurhuleni recently.
“This is an indictment of the state’s failure to create an environment in which women can live without fear,” the party concluded.