Armed men shot dead six members of a neighbourhood watch programme in a crime-ravaged informal settlement north of South Africa’s capital Pretoria, police said Tuesday.
The weekend attack was widely condemned in crime-weary South Africa and the police minister visited the Soshanguve township Tuesday to meet members of the affected community.
The attackers — allegedly linked to murders and house robberies in the area — opened fire on an unarmed patrol of about a dozen members of the community watch in the early hours of Saturday, police said.
Four died on the spot and two others later, one of them on Tuesday. Some of the bodies were partially burned, police said in a statement.
Six other members of the patrol were admitted to hospital with injuries and two had been discharged, police said.
Two alleged attackers had been arrested, police minister Senzo Mchunu said.
South Africa has a high murder rate that averages to around 75 killings per day, according to police statistics.