Three Lesotho nationals charged with S.Africa mass shooting

Three people from Lesotho have been arrested and charged with murder after a mass shooting in South Africa earlier this month that left 13 people dead, prosecutors said Thursday.

The motive for the June 9 attack on an informal settlement in Johannesburg has been linked to turf wars between illegal miners operating on abandoned or disused mine shafts.

The suspects, aged between 26 and 34, were arrested after being pointed out to police by some of the 14 survivors of the shooting, the national prosecuting authority said.

The attack was in an area of rough wooden and metal shacks about six kilometres (less than four miles) east of the Johannesburg city centre and near abandoned gold mines.

Police said about 10 attackers were dropped off at both entrances of the settlement late at night and opened fire as they moved through, being picked up afterwards in a vehicle.

Reporting by the Daily Maverick media site found that the 12 people who died at the scene included men and women from South Africa and neighbouring Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

It said a woman who died from her injuries was believed to be from Lesotho, the small kingdom embedded within South African territory.

Thousands of unregistered miners known as "zama zamas" operate in South Africa, scavenging abandoned mines for gold and other minerals in arduous and often perilous conditions.

They come from across the region, driven by poverty and unemployment, and the sector has been linked to organised crime, assassinations, extortion and other illegal activities.