A mass shooting at an unlicensed bar inside a hostel in Saulsville, west of Pretoria, left at least 12 people dead and 13 others wounded, according to South African police.
Police said the attack took place in the early hours of Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, and involved multiple suspects. Ten people died at the scene and two more later died in hospital. The victims included three children aged 3, 12 and 16. Investigators said they were searching for three male suspects, while the motive remained unclear.
The shooting happened at about 4.15 a.m., but police were only alerted around 6 a.m. Brig. Athlenda Mathe, speaking to South Africa's SABC, said at least three unknown gunmen entered the hostel, where a group of people were drinking, and opened fire randomly. That account matched the broader police description of a fast-moving attack in a crowded, unlicensed venue.
The scene fits a pattern that has worried South African police for years. South Africa has one of the world's highest homicide rates and recorded more than 26,000 homicides in 2024, an average of more than 70 a day. Firearms are the leading cause of homicide deaths, and many killings involve illegal guns even though the country has relatively strict ownership laws.
Police said violence at unlicensed bars, often called shebeens or taverns, has become a serious problem. Between April and September, authorities shut down more than 11,000 illegal taverns and arrested more than 18,000 people for involvement in illegal liquor sales. The country has also seen repeated mass shootings at such venues, including one in Soweto in 2022 that killed 16 people and another on the same day in a different province that killed four.
Forensic teams and police officers collected evidence at the Saulsville scene while families waited for information about the injured. Police did not provide details on the ages or conditions of the wounded. The incident added to public pressure on authorities to reduce illegal firearms, crack down on unlicensed alcohol venues and tackle the violence that regularly turns nightlife spots into crime scenes.
The attack also underscored the strain of repeated shootings at illegal drinking venues in South Africa. Police said unlicensed bars, often known as shebeens or taverns, are now a major enforcement focus because they combine easy access to alcohol, illegal firearms and crowded indoor spaces where violence can spread fast. That makes every shooting harder to contain and every scene harder to process for forensic teams.
The death toll and the ages of the children killed turned the Saulsville attack into more than another crime statistic. It landed in a country already struggling with a murder rate that police describe as among the highest in the world, and it reopened questions about how quickly police can identify the source of gunfire, reach remote urban hostels and stop armed suspects who can disappear before dawn.
The social cost of the attack was amplified by the age of the victims. A bar shooting that leaves children among the dead does more than add to a homicide tally; it turns an already violent crime scene into a broader warning about how unlicensed venues can expose families, neighbors and bystanders to sudden gunfire.
