Deadly shooting near Kruger gate

2008-01-02 14:16

Johannesburg - Two people were shot dead and one seriously injured outside South Africa's Kruger National Park, the country's top tourist destination, SAfm public radio reported Wednesday.

The attack took place outside the Parfuri gate in the northernmost part of Africa's largest game reserve, the report said. That part of the park is inhabited by members of the Makuleke community.

Park rangers allegedly fired shots at a vehicle carrying the victims, believing they were poachers, according to the report. Four suspects had been arrested in connection with the incident.

No tourists were caught up in the attack which took place on New Year's Eve, Park spokesperson William Mabasa told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The Makuleke people, who were removed from the area under discriminatory apartheid laws in the late 1960s, now own around 25 000 hectares of the land in the far north of the park on the border with Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

The area forms the nucleus of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, one of the cross-border so-called "peace parks" being developed to stimulate regional tourism.

December is high season in Kruger National Park, where hundreds of thousands of people flock every year to catch a glimpse of the "big five" African animals - elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, leopard and lion. - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA