Gunmen stormed a home in a township outside the South African city of Pietermaritzburg and killed 10 members of the same family, police have said.
Police did not give a motive for the shooting.
Seven women and three men were killed, the police ministry said in a statement.
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.
"It's a crime scene, terrible. Too many people were lost here," Police Minister Bheki Cele said in comments broadcast on public broadcaster SABC from Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal province.
Cele said police management needed to sit down to 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 bodies of those killed were being loaded on a stretcher. Worried members of the community looked on.
Magnitude 7.7 quake shakes Panama, canal operations normal
US imposes sanctions on International Criminal Court
Three Saudi nationals killed in attacks on Riyadh airport, aviation authority says
Former ICC judge Navi Pillay wins 2026 Nobel Peace Prize
Renoir paintings stolen from Riviera museum recovered, 6 people arrested
