Fifteen people were killed and nine more wounded in the raid in Orlando East in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The attack took place just a few hours after a similar shooting incident which left four people dead and eight wounded in a tavern in Pietermaritzburg, 500km (300 miles) from Soweto. Two more people were also killed during a suspected robbery in a tavern in Katlehong, outside Johannesburg.
On Monday, Gauteng Police Commissioner Elias Mawela described a horrific crime scene in Soweto, with the victims’ bodies slumped over each other, surrounded by spent bullet cartridges. From the way the bodies were placed, “you could see that these people were struggling to get out of the tavern,” he said.
Hiding under the table
One man who survived the shooting told DW how he threw himself under the snooker table and pretended to be dead until the gunmen eventually left about ten minutes after opening fire. Another, who said he lost a relative and asked to remain anonymous, told DW he saw bodies with their chests blasted open.
Police Minister Bheki Cele visited the area on Monday and held a community meeting. Angry residents demanded that all police officers in the local station be dismissed, arguing that they have failed to protect them.
Around 20,000 people are murdered in South Africa every year, out of a population of about 60 million.
Government promises to do more
Minister Bheki Cele promised to deploy more police officers and resources to the area. He announced that police are following leads on five suspects. However, no arrests have yet been made.
Cele dismissed speculations that these could be coordinated attacks by terrorists. Authorities do not believe that the attacks are linked. “We just believe that it’s criminality that coincidentally happens at the same time,” Cele said.
However, the attacks have unleashed a wave of anger at the police for failing to curb high levels of violent crime in the country.
Poverty breeds crime
Analyst and actvist Mamphela Ramphela believes the high crime rate is reflective of government failure, much like most of South Africa’s problems.
“We do not have a government that is capable of translating that Constitution, which embodies the dreams of South Africa’s people, into day-to-day life,” she told DW.
Criminality in South Africa has long been associated with high levels of poverty and unemployment. But criminologists point out that the recent spate of attacks against taverns follow a different pattern, with no reports of the victims being robbed.
Police are also yet to establish how 21 young people died at Enyobeni Tavern in Eastern Cape last month.
Edited by: Ineke Mules