A "mob" tied up and burned seven men accused of a crime wave to death on Sunday in Diepsloot, South Africa.
A steadily increasing murder rate afflicts South Africa. Still, community leaders say Diepsloot, a town of more than 350,000 people north of Johannesburg with high rates of killings and rape, has been abandoned by authorities.
Police said they had started a murder investigation after the charred bodies of the seven young men were found.
Police spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Mavela Masondo stated that an alert over two "burned bodies" was raised late Friday night.
Further, he said another five bodies were discovered in the early hours of Saturday in a nearby district of Diepsloot.
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"Preliminary investigation suggests that in both incidents, the victims were assaulted and burned by the mob," Masondo said.
The bodies of the five men, all aged about 20, were found on a pile of bricks on wasteland in the town.
Masondo said no motive for the killings had been confirmed but commented that police "strongly condemn acts of vigilantism and the community taking the law into their own hands, as that constitutes a serious criminal offense."
