Joe Slovo Park is reeling after three men were shot and killed in a shebeen on Sunday night.
Gunmen entered the shebeen at about 9.30pm and demanded cash from the owner who was unable to pay, said provincial police spokesman Colonel Andrè Traut.
It’s suspected, he said, that the gunmen had then fired several shots, fatally wounding the 58-year husband of the shebeen owner and two other men.
The shooters then fled and are still at large.
The shebeen is in Joe Slovo Park’s Mshini Wam shanty town. A man, who lives nearby but who did not want to be named, said he was awake at the time of the shooting.
“I was standing outside that evening. It wasn’t cold, just a typical summer night. I saw the owner running out of her shebeen, and she ran to another neighbour. It wasn’t long when we heard the shots ring out. I don’t even know how many shots were fired because I panicked and ran inside my house. There were people shouting outside, but I just stayed indoors. Only later I came out and got the whole story.”
Other neighbours said the shebeen owner’s husband had come to investigate after one of the gunmen had hit his wife with the back of a gun prompting her to run outside.
Joe Slovo resident Thandeka Jwili said: “We hear of shooting every other week here. If it isn’t assassinations, like the murder of that taxi owner a few weeks ago, it’s senseless killings like this. I think of the families of the two men who were probably just getting a nightcap at that shebeen before heading home and getting rest for work the next day. This community needs to band together along with the police and stop these things from happening.”
Anyone with information can call Crime Stop anonymously at 08600 10111.