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19 killed in South Africa bar shootings
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South African Police Service (SAPS) officers enforce a perimeter around a crime scene as pathological investigators inspect the crime scene where 16 people where shot dead in a tavern as a forensic team investigates in Soweto on July 10, 2022. /EMMANUEL CROSET / AFP

South African Police Service (SAPS) officers enforce a perimeter around a crime scene as pathological investigators inspect the crime scene where 16 people where shot dead in a tavern as a forensic team investigates in Soweto on July 10, 2022. /EMMANUEL CROSET / AFP

At least 19 people were killed in two separate shootings carried out just hours apart in South Africa.

Attackers armed with rifles and pistols opened fire in the Orlando East bar in the township of Soweto in the early hours of Sunday, killing 15 people and wounding nine, local police said.

In the eastern city of Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal province, four people were killed and eight wounded in a bar when two men fired indiscriminately at customers on Saturday evening.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa denounced the incidents as "unacceptable and worrying".

"As a nation, we cannot allow violent criminals to terrorize us in this way, regardless of where such incidents may occur," Ramaphosa said in a statement.

He also offered condolences for the lives lost under "similar circumstances" in Soweto and Pietermaritzburg.

(With inputs from agencies) 

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