South African police were combing through the informal bar in a ghetto in East London, southern South Africa, where 21 youths were killed on Sunday, on Monday, looking for clues as to the causes. deaths.
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Most of the dead, the youngest aged 13, were found Sunday morning in this night bar, without any apparent injuries. Others died hours later in hospital.
The causes of these deaths remain a mystery, with some local officials citing poisoning or intoxication following uncontrolled drinking.
“Investigators are resuming their work at the scene of the tragedy on Monday morning,” regional police spokesman Thembinkosi Kinana told AFP.
No arrests were made, he added.
Most of the victims – 13 boys and eight girls – are students celebrating the end of the school year, according to local officials who stress that in the absence of apparent injuries and testimonies, it was necessary to wait for the results of the autopsies to hope to find out the cause of death.
“Samples were flown this morning to Cape Town”, 800 km west of East London, where examinations are to be carried out, Unathi Binqose, a security services official told AFP. Eastern Cape Province.
Many informal drinking establishments – nicknamed “shebeens” or “taverns” – are authorized or tolerated in the ghettos of large South African cities, these disadvantaged neighborhoods once reserved for non-whites before the end of apartheid. But the regulations on the legal age – 18 years – for the consumption of alcohol are not always respected.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed concern “regarding the circumstances in which such young people were able to gather in a place to which access should obviously have been prohibited for at least 18 years of age”.