3 kids among 7 family members shot dead as they watched TV in their home in South Africa: "It was an execution"

Unknown gunmen shot dead seven members of the same family, including three children, in an execution-style killing in their home in rural South Africa, police said Thursday.

A 5-year-old boy was among those killed in the shooting at a homestead in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province late Wednesday, police said. The eldest victim was a woman aged about 55, they said.

The motive for the attack in the Highflats area, about 50 miles northwest of the coastal city of Durban, was not yet known.