Meyiwa's killing was the second death to hit South African sport in three days after former 800-meter world champion and Olympic silver medalist Mbulaeni Mulaudzi was killed in a car crash on Friday.
South African police on Monday launched a massive operation to find the killers of the national soccer team captain who was fatally shot during an apparent house robbery, underscoring the country's high rate of violent crime.
Goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa was killed around 8 p.m. Sunday after two gunmen entered a house he was visiting in Vosloorus township near Johannesburg while an accomplice waited outside, police said. The 27-year-old Meyiwa was shot in the upper body, national police commissioner Gen. Riah Phiyega said at a news conference announcing the manhunt for the three suspects.
Police also raised the reward to nearly $23,000, hoping to get more information to find Meyiwa's killers. The goalkeeper was shot while trying to stop the intruders, who had demanded cellphones and money from people inside the home, said friend Tumelo Waka Madlala, who was at the house during the robbery.
"As they were running away we tried to stop them and that is when they shot him at point blank range," Madlala told The Associated Press.
Police said Meyiwa was shot as he moved toward the intruders. Another person in the house was struggling with one of the intruders when Meyiwa was shot, they said.
The house belonged to Meyiwa's girlfriend, Kelly Khumalo, a South African singer and celebrity, witnesses said. There were seven people in the house before the intruders entered, according to police. No one else was hurt. A cellphone was taken.
South Africa has a high rate of violent crime, an issue that was raised during the recent trial of Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius, who claimed he shot and killed his girlfriend by accident in the pre-dawn hours of Feb. 14, 2013 after mistaking her for a dangerous intruder in his home.
