Eleven people have been confirmed dead following a night of shootings in the Marikana informal settlement in Cape Town, police said on Saturday, News24 reports.
Brigadier Novela Potelwa disclosed that the death toll climbed by one after one of the two wounded individuals taken to hospital died.
“We can confirm that the another person died as a result of gun shot wounds sustained in the shooting.”
She said police have since descended on Marikana in Phillipi East.
“We have deployed teams comprising specialist detectives, high risk units and intelligence operatives. We already executed search operations that are set to continue throughout the day,” said Potelwa.
“As the police we appeal to the community to come forward with information that will lead to the arrest of the perpetrators of these shooting incidents. Meanwhile the police are doing their best to arrest those responsible.
News24 reported on Friday night that ten people were shot and killed.
“It is alleged that in the first incident unknown suspects fired shots inside a shebeen fatally wounding four people. [At] the second scene, three more were shot dead in a shack and one outside the dwelling,” said Captain FC van Wyk at the time.
“Not far from the second scene, two more bodies were found lying between the shacks.”
Friday night’s shootings come as gun violence has spiked around the Western Cape.
Several sources with close ties to policing have questioning whether enough was being done on the ground to stem the violence.
Others with ties to politics have questioned whether the violence is perhaps being intentionally sparked to make the province appear more unstable – this they say could be to tarnish the reputations of certain top police officers.
The surge in shootings is happening as an audit of firearms at all police stations in the province is set to get underway.
This after a total of 33 firearms went missing from two police stations in Cape Town recently.
Police Minister Fikile Mbalula had said these weapons had likely ended up in the hands of gangsters.
This week two police constables were arrested in Cape Town – both allegedly booked out firearms from police stations which they then did not use for work.
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