On Saturday, police said seventeen people, including 15 women, were killed in two mass shootings that occurred at two houses on the same street in a rural South African town.

The search for the suspects is ongoing, South African police spokeswoman Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said in a statement.

The victims were 15 women and two men, she added. One person was in hospital in a critical condition.

Photo: EPA-EFE

The person was one of four women, a man and a 2-month-old baby who survived one of the shootings. Authorities did not immediately provide any details about the age and gender of the person in critical condition or the health of the other survivors.

The shooting occurred on Friday evening in the town of Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape province in south-eastern South Africa.

Police said three women and a man were killed in the first shootings in the house where no one survived. A short time later, twelve women and a man were killed in a separate house. The survivors were present during the second shooting. Police said the shootings occurred on Friday evening or Saturday morning.

The video released by the police from the scene shows rural houses on a dirt road on the outskirts of the city. Residents sat on the side of the road as police and criminals blocked off areas with yellow and black crime scene tape and began investigating.

National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola said she had ordered a specialist team of detectives from the administrative capital Pretoria to assist with the investigation.

“A manhunt has been launched to apprehend those behind these heinous killings,” Mathe said.

Local media reported that people were attending a family gathering at the time of the shooting, but police gave no clues about a possible motive or how many shooters there were or what type of weapon was used.

However, police said they were treating the shootings as related.

“This was an “unacceptably huge number” of deaths and those responsible “must not escape justice,” South African Police Minister Senzo Mchunu told a news conference.

“We have full faith and confidence in the team that was sent to solve this case and find these criminals. Either they surrender themselves to us or we will take them away,” Mchunu said.

South Africa, a country of 62 million people, has one of the highest homicide rates in the world.

According to official police statistics, 12,734 homicides were recorded in the first half of this year.

That’s an average of over 70 per day. In these cases, firearms were by far the most common cause of death.