Five South African police officers and an off-duty soldier were killed Wednesday during an attack on a rural police station.
A police spokesman says an armed gang stormed the outpost in the southern village of Engcobo shortly after midnight local time and killed three of the officers. They stole a cache of weapons and abducted two other police officers as they escaped in a police van. The soldier was shot and killed as the gang fled.
The bodies of the two abducted officers were later discovered dumped on the side of a road.
Police Minister Fikile Mbalula called the attack “a national tragedy.”
South Africa has one of the highest crimes rates in the world.
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