SouthAfrican police were on Sunday hunting the perpetrators of two separateshootings that killed 27 people within hours of each other, highlighting thecountry’s rampant gun violence.

“This cannot go onlike this,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said of the incidents, which came onlydays after another shooting killed 11 people at a house party near Durban.

Authorities werestill working to establish the motives for the shootings near Johannesburg andCape Town, but initial investigations suggested one could be a turf war betweenillegal miners and the other a business rivalry.

“This is the levelof criminality that we must bring down, and our security forces are now goingto continue pulling out all stops,” Ramaphosa told local media channels.

Violent crime isrife in South Africa, despite efforts to curb one of the world’s highestper-capita murder rates.

Tavern shootingcould be retaliation 

In Wedela township,about 80 km (50 miles) from Johannesburg, 17 people were killed and 15 injuredat a tavern when suspects armed with AK-47 rifles opened fire on Saturdayevening, police said.

Ramaphosa saidpolice had images of the suspects and were working to track them down.

Residents werereluctant to speak about the incident, but one said that illegal miners, knownlocally as zama zamas from an isiZulu expression for “taking a chance”, live inthe area, where gangs control the illicit gold-mining trade and are known toguard their shafts with military-grade weapons.

Witness SiyabongaVokwana said he was in the tavern when eight people wearing balaclavas andjackets from Lesotho entered and started checking who was in the tavern.

“After checking,they start shooting,” he said.

Lesotho-based gangsare known to be active in the trade, in which migrants from other Africancountries are often exploited for labour and spend months underground searchingabandoned industrial mine shafts for scraps of gold.

The province’spolice commissioner Tommy Mthombeni told reporters that one line of inquiry wasthat the shooting was a “turf war in terms of illegal mining”.  

Saturday’s shootingcould be retaliation for another at the same tavern about a month ago, headded.

Mthombeni said thevictims had not all been identified but that they included South Africans andLesotho nationals, as well as one Ethiopian who was among the wounded.

Revelry halted bygunfire

In the incident inLwandle on the outskirts of Cape Town, gunmen opened fire in a venue wherepeople were drinking at around 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, killing 10 people andinjuring 11.

An eyewitness videoshows people dancing and singing in a crowded outdoor area when a burst of shotsis heard, followed by screams.

Witness KamvalethuGalada said she initially thought the sound was fireworks and continued dancinguntil everyone dropped to the ground.

“After we werelaying on the floor we just heard gunshots continuously, and then probablyafter like 10 to 20, 15 minutes, everyone stood up trying to ... run away,” shetold Reuters.

“Bodies were layingaround us, bodies laying on top of other people that are literally alive.”

A police officialsaid, “A business jealousy might have been the issue,” as there were reportsthat people had been buying alcohol in cheaper places and going to the venue todrink.

No arrests have beenmade, police said. 

Threat to democracy

Crime is expected tobe a major issue for voters in municipal elections in November, when theAfrican National Congress is facing further erosion of voter support. Fear andanger over high rates of femicide have risen after the discovery of women’sbodies near Johannesburg since July. 

Ramaphosa saidearlier this year that organised crime had become the biggest threat to SouthAfrica’s democracy, and deployed the army to help police in some areas. 

Crime expert YusufAbramjee said South Africa is flooded with illegal weapons, which is part ofthe problem.

“Authorities need tolook at the wider networks behind the violence,” he told Reuters.