JOHANNESBURG, Feb 10: A jilted man rampaged through a black township near the South African city of East London, killing 10 people, including his girlfriend, before shooting himself, police said on Sunday.

Seven people were injured as a result of the lovers’ quarrel in the sprawling township of Mdantsane on the outskirts of the port city in the southeast of the country on Saturday night.

Security guard Bulelani Vukwane, 28, went on a two-hour shooting spree. He shot his girlfriend, Noluvuyo Mbenya, her father, two of her relatives and six strangers before he turned the gun on himself.

Police said he had apparently been unable to come to terms with Mbenya’s decision to end their seven-year relationship.

At around 8.30pm on Saturday the off-duty security guard stood outside her home, pleading for her to come out and talk to him. At first, she refused.

“She didn’t want anything to do with him. A friend persuaded her to go out and talk to him. But, as she walked towards him, he shot her as she stood at the kitchen door,” Eastern Cape police inspector Stephen Marais said.

Vukwane then shot and killed an unidentified man sitting in a car in the street outside, dumped his body on the side of the road and fled in the vehicle.

“He went to her parent’s home where he shot her father and two other people (relatives) with a firearm he took from the man he had killed in the car,” Marais told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa.—dpa