10 members of same family dead in mass shooting in South Africa

Ten members of the same family, seven of them women, were killed in a mass shooting at a house in South Africa, police said Friday.

According to initial reports, they were ambushed by unknown gunmen at the home in the city of Pietermaritzburg in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, police said. The shooting happened Thursday night or early Friday morning.

Police Minister Bheki Cele was due to visit the scene on Friday.

South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world and there has been a spate of mass shootings in recent years.

Eight people were fatally shot at a birthday party in the south coast city of Gqeberha in January. Last year, 16 died in a mass shooting at a bar in the Johannesburg township of Soweto when a group of armed men, some of them wielding rifles, opened fire on customers.