“People now have a fear of staying in Wedela.”

These are the words of resident Sithembile David Nqulo, after the weekend’s shooting at Dorah’s Tavern in Ext 3. Several other residents echoed this view.

According to Gauteng police spokesperson Brigadier Brenda Muridili, patrons were drinking inside and outside the tavern on September 26 at about 21:00 when eight attackers arrived and opened fire on those outside. The suspects then entered the tavern and continued shooting at patrons inside. The suspects were reportedly armed with AK-47 rifles and pistols. They allegedly searched some patrons and took their cellphones before fleeing the scene in two unidentified motor vehicles. Two vehicles parked in an open yard opposite the tavern were set alight during the incident.

A total of 17 people, comprising 13 males and four females, were shot and killed during the incident. Fifteen other victims sustained gunshot wounds and were transported to medical facilities by Gauteng EMS for further medical treatment.

One of these patients later died of their injuries.

On September 28, survivors and residents who knew some of the victims spoke to the Herald. According to one woman, who did not want to be named, she was selling goods on the sidewalk opposite the tavern when the gunmen arrived.

Although she ran and tried to hide behind a house, one of the gunmen followed her. “I could feel the gun against my head. I prayed until the man left me,” she says. She saw how the gunmen then pulled a man who was hiding under one of the parked cars out from underneath it before setting the car alight. Luckily, they did not shoot this man. She then heard the gunmen going into the tavern shooting people, and feared that they would come back for her. Luckily, they fled the scene.

Other residents also spoke of how ordinary citizens were killed because they were just at the popular tavern at the wrong time.

According to a community activist, Lunga Zithutha, he had actually planned to go to Dorah’s Tavern to watch the Bafana Bafana match against Guinea.

“I cannot explain it, but something told me not to go,” he says.

Zithutha was devastated when he heard the next day that two of his sister’s friends, Sinawe Zama and Novaleza Vilakazi, were amongst those who died in the shooting. Vilakazi, a resident of Soweto, had visited Wedela just for the weekend.

“We cannot sleep. We do not feel safe here anymore,” four women staying close to the tavern told the Herald.

“It is alright here during the day when the police and everyone is around, but we do not know what will happen at night. We fear for our lives and those of our children,” one of them said.

Although police say that the motive for the shooting is unknown, residents believe that it is linked to fights between rival gangs of illegal miners and, most probably, a continuation of the violence on August 19 and 24 when groups of zama-zamas also shot at each other. This trouble also started in Ext 3.

Various residents and politicians expressed the view that incidents such as this will only be stopped if the government takes more decisive action against illegal immigrants.

Zithuta also shared another outlook. “People staying in Wedela should stop renting out their back rooms to zama-zamas,” he says, but acknowledged that this is many people’s only income.

By the morning of September 28, the streets of Wedela Ext 3 were full of police and SANDF vehicles, after Gauteng police had mobilised a team of detectives and other specialised units to trace and apprehend the suspects. Police have opened 18 counts of murder, 15 counts of attempted murder and two counts of malicious property damage.

This shooting is one of the biggest mass shootings ever to occur in South Africa.