South African Officials have indicated that at least 15 people were shot and killed in two random shootings within hours of each other at taverns in Soweto, South Africa.

The second shooting claimed the lives of four other people in the south-eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal, police said on Sunday. The victims are between the ages of 19 to 35.

This shooting comes weeks after twenty-one teenagers were killed at a bar in the city of East London.

Police reports indicate that attackers armed with rifles and pistols opened fire in the Orlando East bar in the township of Soweto in the early hours of Sunday.

Further reports also stated that 23 people were shot in the establishment — 12 died at the scene and 11 were rushed to a nearby hospital with injuries. At least two more people were declared dead at the hospital.

Following the shooting, the assailants fled the scene in a white minibus.

In the interim, police have issued a plea for witnesses to come forward with information that will lead to the arrest of the suspects involved in the deadly attack.

Meanwhile, President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed his condolences to the relatives of victims of both shootings and urges the nation to aid authorities in curbing violence.

“As a nation, we cannot allow violent criminals to terrorize us in this way, regardless of where such incidents may occur,” he outlined.

“As government, citizens and structures of civil society we must all work together even more closely to improve social and economic conditions in communities, reduce violent crime and stamp out the illicit circulation of firearms. Every single violent death is unacceptable and worrying, and killings on the scale we have seen in Soweto, Pietermaritzburg and previously Khayelitsha must spur us into a collective effort to build communities and make South Africa an unsafe place for criminals,” he added.