South African police have launched a manhunt for three gunmen who burst into a house party in the Ziko area of KwaMakhutha township, south of Durban, late on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, and opened fire on the guests, killing 11 people and wounding three. Police and provincial officials laid out the first details on Wednesday, September 23. Fourteen people — 13 men and one woman believed to be pregnant — were inside the small house when three armed men arrived shortly before 11 p.m. local time and began shooting. Ten died at the scene; four others were taken to hospital, where one later died of their injuries. KwaZulu-Natal Premier Thamsanqa Ntuli said the community had been left “in profound shock and grief.”
What Investigators Found
Local broadcaster eNCA reported that the attackers, carrying pistols and rifles, forced everyone into a single room before opening fire, then set alight a car belonging to one of the victims before fleeing; police said they were examining whether that fire was connected to the shooting. Bodies lay outside the house under sheets before stretcher crews carried them to pathology vans, and officers strung tape around the neighborhood while forensic teams combed the property. Colonel Robert Netshiunda, the provincial police spokesperson, said preliminary investigations found some of the victims had previously come to the attention of Crime Intelligence over suspected illegal activities, though police declined to elaborate, citing the ongoing investigation. A feud between rival groupings could not be ruled out, they added.
A 72-Hour Manhunt
Acting National Police Commissioner Lt-Gen Puleng Dimpane directed the KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner to activate a 72-hour tracking operation to run down the three suspects, saying investigators were following a “promising lead.” Ntuli, visiting the scene, urged residents to come forward with anything that might help, describing a largely poor community with known drug-dealing and illegal-firearm problems, its homes standing a few meters apart with no fences between them.
A Pattern of Mass Shootings
With roughly 60 people killed every day in a population of about 62 million, South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world. SAPS recorded 5,427 homicides nationally between April and June — a 5.9% drop from the same period the year before, but still an average of nearly 60 a day; the January-to-March quarter averaged 58 a day. Guns account for most homicides, and police and researchers have long pointed to the sheer volume of illegal firearms in circulation.
The Durban-area killings follow a string of similar attacks. In June, multiple shooters killed 12 people in an informal settlement in Cleveland, a Johannesburg suburb, in a case police tied to criminal gangs. About six months earlier, nine people died when gunmen opened fire at a tavern outside Johannesburg. And in a 2023 attack in KwaZulu-Natal, an entire family of 10 — including a 13-year-old boy — was gunned down at home.
A Broader Security Crisis
The country’s high murder rate is decades old, but mass shootings tied to organized crime have become a sharper source of public fear, fueling demands that the government dismantle criminal networks, including the contract-killing operations 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.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced in his February State of the Nation address that he would deploy the army to support police, calling organized crime “the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development.” Troops began moving into the Western Cape and Gauteng, with the Eastern Cape added days later; KwaZulu-Natal, where Tuesday’s shooting took place, was not included in that deployment. Separately, Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has been on leave since mid-2025 amid an ongoing judicial commission of inquiry into allegations that he interfered with organized-crime investigations, which he denies.
As of Wednesday, September 23, the three gunmen remained at large, and no one was in custody.