After apprehending four suspects wanted in connection with the mass murder of 18 people in Lusikisiki, police have arrested another two suspects and recovered weapons believed to have been used in the shooting.
The South African Police Service (SAPS) said through intelligence and meticulous detective work, the high calibre firearms were recovered on Thursday evening (17 October).
“Preliminary investigations indicate that the firearms were moved to another location after the killing of the Lusikisiki eighteen,” the SAPS said.
Two more suspects have been arrested after they were found to be in possession of these rifles. The pair was arrested in Flagstaff in the Eastern Cape.
The firearms have been taken in for ballistics testing to determine and confirm that they were indeed used in the commission of the crime and to also determine which other crime scenes can be linked to them.
The National Police Commissioner, General Fannie Masemola, earlier thanked South Africans “for the overwhelming support in providing information on the whereabouts of the wanted suspects in the Lusikisiki mass murders.”
Masemola confirmed that in less than 24 hours from the time the SAPS issued an alert on the wanted suspects, communities rallied together and informed police on their whereabouts, resulting in all four suspects in police custody.
In the early hours of Saturday 28 September, two homesteads in the same street in Lusikisiki, Gqeberha, were attacked, leaving an initial 17 dead and 6 injured. In the first homestead, four people were shot and killed, with no survivors. At the second homestead, there were nineteen people shot in two different houses, with thirteen killed. The six survivors include four women and a two-month-old baby.
However, on Sunday 29 September, police confirmed the 18th victim had died in hospital.
Community members revealed that the family had all gathered at the homestead to hold a ceremony, marking the end of a period of mourning for two family members killed in a separate shooting a year earlier.