Gunmen Kill 11 at KwaMakhutha Township Gathering in South Africa

At least 11 people were killed and three others wounded when three gunmen forced their way into a house in KwaMakhutha township, about 30 kilometres south of Durban, and opened fire on a group gathered inside, police and local authorities said.

The attack took place late on Tuesday night. Ten people, among them a pregnant woman, died at the scene, while an 11th was pronounced dead at a hospital. Authorities did not immediately release details on the condition of the three wounded.

According to Nomusa Zulu, whose sons Scelo Zulu and Mlungisi Zulu were among those killed, the group had been drinking in the yard before moving indoors as the evening turned cold.

"When the sun started to set and it got chilly, they went inside the house, closed the door and carried on drinking. About an hour later, they heard a knock at the door. When they opened the door, gun shots went off," she said. She added that two of the dead were from her family and the rest were neighbours from nearby homes.

Police said the motive for the shooting was not yet known, but that some of the victims were already known to authorities in connection with criminal investigations. The South African Police Service said in a statement that while the motive could not be confirmed, "a feud between rival groupings cannot be ruled out." Officials declined to give further details on those investigations, saying it could compromise them.

Mzobanzi Zuma, chairperson of the KwaMakhutha Community Policing Forum, said gunfire is a frequent occurrence in the area. "The reason why police don't always respond immediately or take everything too seriously is that there's a big issue with guns here," he said. "It's a common occurrence here, guns are always going off."

The shooting is the latest in a string of mass killings in South Africa. In June, multiple shooters killed 12 people in a poor neighbourhood of Johannesburg in an attack police linked to criminal gangs. Two mass shootings two weeks apart in December left 21 people dead, both carried out by multiple gunmen.

Official police statistics record 5,427 homicides in the three months between April and June, an average of nearly 60 a day. Shootings are the most common form of homicide in the country, and police and crime experts have long pointed to the large number of illegal firearms in circulation as a central problem.