Multiple people shot at street party in US

At least 17 people were shot and wounded during a street party outside Chicago in the US state of Illinois on Saturday night, reports said.

The shooting happened in a suburb some 30km south of the city outside a shopping mall.

Two of those shot were said to be critical.

A group of 200 to 300 people had taken over the street to have a party when violence erupted, a fire department representative told local TV station WLS.

‘It was supposed to be like a Juneteenth celebration; we just started hearing shooting, so we dropped down until they stopped. They just kept going. After that, we literally scattered away,’ a witness told the channel.

Juneteenth is an annual African-American celebration to mark June 19^th 1865 when the state of Texas proclaimed freedom for slaves.

The holiday dates from 1866, and has been observed in the black community since there but it was only institutionalised by the US government in 2021 as an official holiday.