---
title: "Gunmen ambush KZN family homestead and kill 10 people"
description: "Gunmen stormed a homestead in Pietermaritzburg and ambushed a family, killing 10 people, police said."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "AGE OF THE ASSASSIN"
author: "Reuters"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/reuters/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-04-21-gunmen-kill-10-people-in-ambush-on-family-at-pietermaritzburg-homestead/"
published: "2023-04-21T15:07:18"
updated: "2023-04-21T17:39:09"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 178
---

# Gunmen ambush KZN family homestead and kill 10 people

> Gunmen stormed a homestead in Pietermaritzburg and ambushed a family, killing 10 people, police said.

By Reuters · Published 21 April 2023, 17:07 SAST · Updated 21 April 2023, 19:39 SAST

## Key points
- South Africa's gun and organised crime crisis continues to take its toll, with 10 people killed in a shooting in Pietermaritzburg. Police Minister Bheki Cele said the province may need more resources to tackle the spiralling violence.
- 10 people killed in Pietermaritzburg shooting
- Police Minister Bheki Cele calls for discussion on more police resources
- South Africa has one of the world’s highest murder rates
- Gun attacks in South Africa have increased in 2021

## Content

Police did not give a motive for the shooting in Imbali township.

Seven women and three men were killed, the Police Ministry said.

“It’s a crime scene. Terrible. Too many people were lost here,” Police Minister Bheki Cele told the SABC from Pietermaritzburg.

**Read more in Daily Maverick:**[SA’s multiple murders a mark of nation’s spiralling gun and organised crime crisis](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-04-20-sas-multiple-murders-a-mark-of-nations-spiralling-gun-and-organised-crime-crisis/)

Cele said police management needed to sit down and talk about whether the province needed more police resources.

A *Reuters* photojournalist at the scene of the shooting saw a mortuary van in the yard of the homestead, into which the bodies were being loaded using a stretcher as worried residents looked on.

South Africa has one of the world’s highest murder rates, with about 20,000 murders recorded every year out of a population of 60 million.

Gunmen [killed eight](https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL8N34F0LU&linkedFromStory=true) people and wounded three others at a birthday party in Gqeberha in January, following a spate of mass gun attacks in 2022. **DM/Reuters**

*(Reporting by Rogan Ward. Writing by Alexander Winning. Editing by Mark Heinrich and Peter Graff)*