Police hunt suspects after 12 killed in Johannesburg settlement shooting

More than 10 gunmen swept through the Jumpers informal settlement in Cleveland, east of Johannesburg, late Tuesday night, killing at least 12 people and wounding nine more before escaping in the same minibus that brought them in. Police said the attackers moved through the community of tin shacks and opened fire at multiple locations, leaving investigators to piece together how such a coordinated assault unfolded in one of South Africa’s most crime-strained areas.

South African Police Service officers and Gauteng police said the case was being treated as a criminal act and that provincial and district detectives, crime intelligence officers and forensic experts had been sent to the scene. The assailants were still at large, and authorities said the motive remained under investigation. Police said they were looking for more than 10 suspects after the shooting, which erupted just before midnight on June 9, 2026.

The wounded were taken to hospitals, while forensic teams worked through the scene in the informal settlement, where residents live in tightly packed metal and tin shacks. Police sources and multiple reports said investigators were considering whether the violence was linked to illegal mining activity in the area, where illegal miners were believed to have been living nearby. No arrests had been announced.

The attack has fed fresh alarm in a country long scarred by violent crime and organized-crime networks. For residents of informal settlements, the shooting exposed a familiar weakness: limited security, narrow access routes and little protection against armed groups able to arrive quickly, strike in several places and vanish before a response can close in. The unanswered question now is not only who carried out the attack, but how a settlement on Johannesburg’s edge was left so exposed to it.