11 suspects arrested over deadly South African tavern Shooting

South African police arrested 11 suspects in connection with Sunday’s December 21, 2025, shooting incident at a tavern at Bekkersdal that killed more than 10 people.

Police informed that the arrested suspects also included undocumented miners, in connection with Sunday’s shooting at a tavern that killed 10 people.

Nine citizens of Lesotho and one Mozambican were among those arrested on Wednesday, December 24, 2025, after police and security stormed two houses outside Johannesburg.

As reported by Al Jazeera, ten others were also wounded in a shooting in which about a dozen gunmen in a minibus and a car targeted a tavern in the township of Bekkersdal.

Police said the suspects arrested were found with unlicensed firearms, including four handguns and an AK-47 rifle.

The acting provincial commissioner of Gauteng, Fred Kekana, told reporters that police had found cartridges and live ammunition of the “same type” of firearms at the shooting scene in Bekkersdal, which were sent for testing to determine if they were used in the shooting.

Authorities also arrested a South African mine employee who faces charges related to harboring undocumented tenants and obstructing justice.

Moreover, according to local media, the pub’s owner, Nonesi Matwa, was charged with fraud and operating an illegal liquor outlet on Tuesday, December 23, 2025.

The pub owner’s family told the media that Matwa was being unfairly targeted.

They said that she was not responsible for the violence, stating she was not the one who “pulled the trigger and killed the patrons.”

Surrounded by abandoned mine shafts, townships west of Johannesburg, like Bekkersdal, are notorious for illicit mining operations, which have led to problems including gang violence and the proliferation of illegal firearms.

In areas where the mining industry once thrived, undocumented miners known as “zama-zamas” have continued to operate.

The trade is believed to be predominantly controlled by migrants who enter without papers from Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique.

With almost 26,000 homicides in 2024, or more than 70 per day on average, South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, and firearms are by far the leading cause of death in these killings.

Although the nation of 62 million people has comparatively stringent gun control laws, officials said many killings are carried out using illegal firearms.

Additionally, it has been reported that there have been several mass shootings at bars in South Africa in recent years.