South Africa mass shooting leaves 11 dead as police search for three attackers

Three shooters killed at least 11 people, including a woman who was believed to be pregnant, in an attack at a house party in South Africa, police said Wednesday.

Three others were wounded in the mass shooting late Tuesday night in KwaMakhutha township around 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of the city of Durban on the east coast.

The people had gathered at the house for a party when the suspects entered the house and opened fire, police said. Ten people, including the pregnant woman, died at the scene and an 11th was declared dead at the hospital.

Authorities did not immediately give out details on the condition of the three people who were wounded.

Police said they were searching for the attackers, and no arrest had been made yet.

The motive for the shooting was not known, police said, but added that some of the people at the house were known to police as part of investigations into criminal activity. Police said they couldn't give out any more information on those investigations.

Thami Ntuli, the premier of KwaZulu-Natal province, told reporters the government would continue seeking solutions to violence in the region.

“We will not stop as the government of KwaZulu-Natal to seek solutions,” Ntuli said, adding that officials had met a day earlier to focus on the killings of women in the province.

The bodies of some of the victims of Tuesday night's shooting were laid out on the ground and covered with white sheets outside the small house where the shooting took place. Police cordoned off the larger neighborhood with yellow tape, while forensic investigators worked through the scene.

Police were also investigating if the torching of a car near the house was connected to the shooting.

It's the latest in a series of mass shootings in South Africa in recent years, including one in June when multiple shooters killed 12 people in a poor neighborhood in Johannesburg. Two mass shootings two weeks apart in December killed 21 people.