Violence Persists in South Africa Townships

GUNMEN on a rampage through the black township of Soweto killed eight men and two women Sunday night, bringing the number of dead from South African political violence during the weekend to at least 24, police said Monday.A police spokesman said unidentified attackers fired automatic rifles and other firearms from a minibus driving through Soweto's Mapetla district. The attack brings to about 100 the number of people killed since the government and rival black groups signed a peace accord Sept. 14 to try to end violence threatening democracy talks. The peace effort is the most determined yet to try halt a township war that has erupted since President Frederik de Klerk launched a power-sharing program more than 18 months ago, and began to abolish apartheid. More than 3,000 people have been killed this year in African National Congress and Inkatha Freedom Party fighting. The police spokesman said they had received information that gunmen had driven from the Morafe hostel, which houses migrant workers, many of them from the Inkatha stronghold of the kwaZulu tribal homeland. Police reported earlier that 10 people were killed Saturday, most of them at Vosloorus township south of Johannesburg. Another four were killed elsewhere.