Johannesburg: Four mourners were killed after a gunman fired on a group leaving a memorial service for a local politician in South Africa. Three others were injured in the attack, the police said on Wednesday.
The incident occurred late on Tuesday. At least one of those wounded in the shooting in the Katlehong township was a child, the police said. The suspect reportedly turned himself in and is now in custody.
Authorities had initially said that two men died at the scene southeast of Johannesburg. They raised the death toll to four after two more people died in a hospital on Wednesday.
A political killings task force is investigating the shooting, the South African Police Service said in a statement, as reported by AP.
Local media reports said that some of the victims were members of the youth league of the African National Congress party, the largest party in South Africa’s Parliament.
The memorial service was for a woman who served as a local ANC leader and died in what was suspected to be a politically motivated shooting earlier this month, it has been reported.
The police did not immediately confirm the identity of the victims and only said they had attended a memorial for a “member of a political party.”
South Africa has high rates of gun crime, including shootings related to local political rivalries.
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, in a report earlier this month, said there had been 43 killings in South Africa this year that were suspected to be politically motivated.
Local elections will be held in the country on November 4 to decide which parties control municipal councils.
