Mass Shootings

South Africa recorded 38 deaths in three attacks within a single week, according to NPR. Two of them came hours apart on Saturday night.

Eight men armed with AK-47 rifles and pistols stormed a bar in Wedela township, southwest of Johannesburg, according to the Guardian. Seventeen people died there. Fifteen were hurt. The attackers torched two cars before fleeing with cellphones stripped from patrons, the outlet said. Then, hours later, gunmen opened fire at a shisanyama, a grilled-meat venue, in Lwandle township near Cape Town. Ten died there. Eleven were wounded, the Guardian reported.

"This cannot go on like this," President Cyril Ramaphosa told local television news channels, according to the Guardian.

Police have not confirmed a motive for either attack, BBC News said. By Sunday, only four of the Johannesburg victims had been identified. Officials said the dead included people from Ethiopia and Lesotho as well as South Africans, the BBC reported. Gauteng police commissioner Tommy Mthombeni said investigators were weighing robbery and a possible turf war among illegal gold miners known as zama-zamas. Deputy provincial commissioner Fred Kekana said the Johannesburg shooting could be retaliation for an attack at the same tavern a month earlier, according to the BBC.

Three days before the weekend attacks, three gunmen killed 11 people, including a pregnant woman, at a house party in KwaMakhutha township near Durban, CBC News reported. That's three attacks in one week. South Africa records about 60 murders a day, one of the highest rates in the world, NPR reported.

Ramaphosa has called organized crime the most immediate threat to the country's democracy and economy. Earlier this year he ordered soldiers deployed to high-murder areas, the BBC reported. President Trump has also spoken about crime in South Africa, focusing on killings of white farmers, NPR reported, though the outlet said government figures show most crime victims are poor Black South Africans.

No arrests had been made in either weekend shooting by Sunday, the Guardian reported. South Africans vote in local elections in November. Crime is expected to top the list of issues, according to NPR.

"This is the level of criminality that we must bring down, and our security forces are now going to continue pulling out all stops," Ramaphosa told local television news channels, according to the Guardian.