A brutal mass shooting at a Saulsville hostel, which left 12 dead and 13 injured, has exposed the deadly underworld of extortion gang rivalries gripping parts of Pretoria. One suspect has confessed, according to police. The Saulsville hostel mass shooting, which claimed the lives of 12 people and injured 13 on 6 December 2025, is connected to a complicated web of murders and attempted murders in Atteridgeville, a township located in the west of Pretoria.
Speaking to the media outside of the Atteridgeville Magistrate’s Court, Gauteng Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Tommy Mthombeni confirmed this, adding that the shooting was linked to rivalries between splinter groups of an extortion gang that fractured in 2023. Mthombeni said that before the mass shooting, there were two other murder and attempted murder incidents on 3 December, with one victim dying on 5 December. “It’s a complex issue, as I have indicated.
In 2023, there was one leader who was the main leader of this group. When he was shot and killed, a splinter group was formed. On the third, one of the leaders of this splinter group was shot,” Mthombeni said.
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He said that the mass shooting on 6 December occurred when members of this group were reportedly looking for another individual, but discovered a friend had been killed, leading to the shooting. At 4am on the morning of the mass shooting, three gunmen charged into a tavern inside a hostel in Atteridgeville, one of Pretoria’s townships, and indiscriminately opened fire. Among the 12 people who were gunned down, the youngest victim was a three-year-old, the child of the illegal shebeen’s owner.
Two other minors, aged 12 and 16, were among those gunned down. While 10 people died at the scene, the remaining two victims succumbed to their injuries in the hospital. Lieutenant-General Mthombeni revealed the link to gang rivalries outside the Attridgeville Magistrate’s Court, where one of the suspects in the mass shooting appeared for the first time on Wednesday.
This was after a joint operation between South African Police Service (SAPS) officers in Gauteng and Limpopo, which traced the suspected gunman to Polokwane, resulting in his arrest on 21 December. The media and public were not permitted to be in the courtroom when the suspect appeared. This is because the alleged gunman cannot be identified at this stage as a result of not having been taken through an identification parade.
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