Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

A soldier on guard duty at the Army Support Base in Bloemfontein shot a high ranking officer and his wife dead on Thursday morning, before wounding a colleague and committing suicide, Free State police said.

Superintendent Sam Makhele said Captain Tlakisa Samuel Matlabe, 42, was on his way to take his 40-year-old wife, Dikeledi Jocobeth, to the school where she was a teacher when the incident happened.

One of the couple's children, a four-year-old boy, was with them. The child was unharmed, Makhele said.

Their other two children were walking to a nearby school at the time of the shooting.

After killing the couple, 43-year-old Private Thokoane Ezekiel Motsilili shot his unarmed colleague, Private Ferrington Mbongiseni Ndimande, 33, critically wounding him.

Motsilili then turned his R4 rifle on himself.

Ndimande was admitted to the Medi-Clinic hospital in Bloemfontein and has undergone emergency surgery.

In a statement the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) said his condition was critical.

Matlabe's children received counselling at 3Military Hospital later on Thursday.

The SANDF said it regretted the shooting incident.

Police spent more than two hours on the scene to remove the bodies.

The window on the driver's side of Matlabe's car was shattered while two bullet holes were visible in the windscreen, directly in front of the driver.

Motsilili's covered body lay towards the back of the vehicle on the sidewalk near the guard house.

Free State police commissioner, Amon Mashigo, expressed his condolences to his colleagues in the defence force.

"We reject in the strongest possible terms this kind of behaviour," Mashigo, who visited the scene, said.

He said the motive for the shooting was subject to investigation.

"We do not have a witness at this stage," Mashigo said, but added they would get to the bottom of the incident.

The general commanding officer of Tempe military base, Brigadier-General Morris Moadira said he and Matlabe were "very close friends".

"We buried his father over the weekend in Thaba Nchu, that's how close we were," Moadira said.

Moadira said the motive behind the shooting was not known.

The Chief of the South African Army, Lieutenant-General Solly Shoke has launched an urgent investigation, which will run with the police investigation.

The Minister of Defence, Mosiuoa Lekota, the Chief of the SANDF, General Godfrey Ngwenya and the Secretary of Defence, January Masilela have expressed their regret with the incident and extended their sincere condolences to the families of the deceased.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) also expressed its shock with the incident.

DA spokesman for defence, Roy Jankielsohn, said the SANDF has assured the party that a very senior delegation was currently probing the incident.

"The child who survived was receiving counselling and this would also be extended to personnel who were shocked and traumatised by the shootings," Jankielsohn said.

Jankielsohn said while Thursday's shooting was the second such incident at Tempe, the motives for the two appeared very different.

"While the first incident was racially motivated, this one appears to have a completely different motive."

He said his party would however request that Parliament's portfolio committee for defence receive a thorough briefing on the shooting once the investigation has been completed.

In September 1999 Tempe was the scene of another shooting incident.

Lieutenant Sibusiso Madubela, 28, went on a shooting spree at 1 SA Infantry Battalion, killing seven people and injuring five before he was shot by one of his victims.