Gunmen Kill 14 in Ambush in S. Africa : Racial violence: 29 are hurt in attack on 2 buses. It’s the worst case of black factional fighting since the peace accord. Inkatha officials blame the ANC.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Gunmen ambushed two buses on a road in strife-torn Natal province, killing 14 people and injuring 29 in the worst case of black factional violence since rival groups struck a peace accord last month, police said Monday.
Related internecine battles at a nearby black township between groups wielding hatchets and knives killed three people overnight, police said.
The ambushers, firing rifles and handguns, lined both sides of the Bulwer Road near the provincial capital of Pietermaritzburg late Sunday and “literally raked the buses with gunfire,†a police spokesman said.
Officials in the Inkatha movement quickly blamed members of its arch-rival anti-apartheid group, the nationally more popular African National Congress, for the attack.
Local Inkatha leaders reported trying to persuade hundreds of their followers not to mount revenge action.
But Inkatha and the ANC said later in a joint statement they viewed the killings with “shock and horror.â€
The statement, signed by ANC leader Nelson Mandela and Inkatha Chairman Frank Mdlalose, on behalf of movement president Mangosuthu Buthelezi, did not cast blame.
The ANC also called for a joint commission of inquiry of anti-apartheid groups into the killings, saying: “It is self-evident that this bloodletting has brought untold misery.â€
“We’re not sure which side was on the attack this time, but this is certainly part of the ongoing violence here,†the police spokesman said. The area is a hub of the four-year Natal conflict between Inkatha and the ANC.
He linked the ambush to the violence in nearby Taylor’s Halt township, where patrols found three bodies after a series of clashes through the night.
“It looks like the fighting somehow spread to Taylor’s Halt,†he said.
Police had made no arrests in the cases, but they said they were investigating.
The spokesman could not confirm reports that some of the bus victims were on their way back from a report-back meeting on the peace accord reached Jan. 29 between the ANC and Inkatha.
Mandela and Buthelezi jointly condemned Natal’s factional violence, which has killed at least 4,000 people in the eastern coastal province, and called on their followers immediately to lay down their weapons.
But the accord was shattered less than two days later, when Inkatha supporters stormed through an ANC village stronghold in southern Natal, killing nine people and wounding at least 10.
Mandela and Buthelezi have said that time is needed before their instructions filter down to the grass-roots level.
The ANC has accused Inkatha of being too conservative in its opposition to white minority rule, while Inkatha has said that the ANC refuses to tolerate rival black movements.
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