Police say a manhunt has been launched after the attack in the southeast of the country, were mass shootings have lately become common.

Seventeen people, including 15 women, have been killed in two houses in close proximity to each other in a rural town in South Africa, according to the police.

A search was under way for the suspects, national police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said in a statement on Saturday.

The shooting took place on Friday night in the town of Lusikisiki in Eastern Cape province in southeastern South Africa.

Video released by police showed the shooting occurred at two houses in the same neighbourhood, which is a collection of rural homesteads on the outskirts of the town.

Twelve women and a man were killed in one house and three women and a man were killed in the other house, police said. Four women, one man and a two-month-old baby survived.

Local media reported that the people were attending a family gathering at the time of the shooting, but the motives for the killing remains unknown.

Manhunt under way

Police minister Senzo Mchunu told a media briefing on Saturday that a team of detectives and forensic experts had been deployed.

“We have full faith and confidence in the team that has been deployed to crack this case and find these criminals. Either they hand themselves over or we will fetch them ourselves,” Mchunu said.

“We do not know the motive” and “we do not know if there is one or several suspects on the run”, national police chief Fannie Masemola said on SABC public television.

South Africa, a country of 62 million, recorded 12,734 homicides in the first six months of this year, according to official crime statistics from the police. That is an average of more than 70 a day. Firearms are by far the biggest cause of death in those cases.

Mass shootings have also become increasingly common in recent years, sometimes targeting people in their homes. Ten members of the same family, including seven women and a 13-year-old boy, were killed in a mass shooting at their home in the neighbouring KwaZulu-Natal province in April 2023.

Firearm laws are reasonably strict in South Africa, but authorities have often pointed to the large number of illegal, unregistered guns in circulation as a major problem.