Seventeen people have been killed in a mass shooting in a remote South African town with a manhunt under way to find the perpetrators, police say.

Two homesteads in the town of Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape were targeted, police said, with 12 women and one man killed in one location, and three women and one man at a second location.

An 18th victim is in a critical condition in hospital, the South Africa Police Service said.

The police minister, Senzo Mchunu, is expected to visit the area where the attack occurred.

South African media outlets are reporting the victims were relatives and neighbours in Nyathi village, Ngobozana in Lusikisiki.

They said the group had been gathered at the houses to prepare to attend a traditional mourning ceremony for a mother and daughter who were murdered a year ago.

The victims had been packing goods and presents, including furniture, for the event when the attack occurred on Friday night, according to the media reports.

News outlet Dispatch Live quoted local Ingquza Hil mayor Nonkosi Pepping saying: "The gunmen came and shot randomly... This has left the community terrified."

South Africa Police Service spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe told Newzroom Afrika that there had been a total of 19 people sleeping in two homes at one of the shooting locations.

She said there had been six survivors at one homestead - four women, a man, and a two-month-old child who was uninjured but taken to hospital as a precaution. There were no survivors at the other homestead.

Officials have yet to determine the motive or make any arrests.

Brig Mathe said: "We have a team of detectives that is already on the ground. We have a team of experts coming in from Pretoria that are descending in Lusikisiki, to investigate, to collect all evidence with the aim of apprehending those [who] are behind these callous attacks."

Cabinet member for community safety, Xolile Nqatha, told state broadcaster SABC that he hoped the critically injured man would make a "speedy" recovery, as "his recovery can help us shed more light" on the shooting.

He also suggested that the assailants may have been known to the victims.

South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world, according to the latest figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

There were more than 27,000 murders in 2022 - amounting to 45 people per 100,000, out of a population of almost 60 million. By comparison, the US rate is six per 100,000.