As many as 24 people including three children under 13 have been shot in a weekend of bloodshed in Chicago.

The shootings began at 4am on Saturday and finished around 10am on Sunday - with three adults dying from their injuries.

A horrific daylight attack saw two gunman carry out a mass shooting of six people outside a baby shower in West Englewood.

An eight-year-old boy was hit in the chest and back while a girl, 10, was shot in the shin before the shooters fled on foot at around 6.25pm.

Chicago police work on the scene of a shooting in the 6300 block of South Seeley on Saturday night

The unnamed children are in a critical but stable condition.

Cops have suggested the sickening incident may be gang-related.

'This is a very tragic incident. You have two young children, an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old, clinging to life,' Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

'Cooperation has been very limited with detectives and based on victim profiles, we suspect this could have been a possible retaliatory shooting from an earlier incident that stemmed from an ongoing gang conflict in that neighborhood.'

Also shot were four other people - three men ranging in age from 23 to 48 and a 29-year-old woman.

The woman was hospitalized in critical condition, and the two younger men were in stable condition.

The condition of the oldest man was unknown, and Guglielmi said it was unclear whether the woman who was hurt may have been the person who was pregnant.

People rushed inside the house when the shooting began. Children who had been playing in the yard reportedly started piling atop one another as they tried to get through the door.

A daylight attack saw two gunman shoot six people outside a baby shower in West Englewood. Two children were in hospital

'We were trying to pick the kids up, get the kids out of the way . they were going to get crushed,' Richard Nix, whose grandson was having the shower, told The Chicago Tribune.

'It wasn't nothing but kids in front of the house, sitting on the porch. They was just playing, and the shooting went off.'

'It's part of a larger conflict that's going on in that area,' Guglielmi said.

Violence has tended to increase in the summer months in Chicago, largely attributed to cold weather keeping people indoors and social gatherings in the summer leading to more drunken behaviour.

It was the warmest weekend of the year, according to Todd Kluber, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Demonte Davis, 19, was also gunned down on West Steuben Street, Morgan Park, where he died at around 4pm Saturday.

A 22-year-old was injured in the attack.

On Sunday, officers were called to South Maryland Avenue, Woodlawn, after a 32-year-old man was shot multiple times in the back at 6.30am.

No one has been arrested after the victim died at Chicago University Medical Center.

The final confirmed death this weekend saw a 52-year-old man shot in the head at around 8.30am Sunday on South Normal Boulevard, Englewood.

Cops believe the incident may be a domestic dispute and a person is in custody.

Chicago police had opened two homicide investigations as of Sunday morning.

Other injuries over the weekend included three people shot in East Garfield Park at 3.30am Sunday as they stood on West Wilcox Street.

A man, aged 34, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital with a wound on his right leg.

A 26-year-old was taken to Norwegian American Hospital with an injury to his right foot and a 33-year-old man was rushed to a medical center with a bullet wound on his left arm.

Authorities have struggled to contain violence in Chicago, the nation's third-largest city.

Police said 561 homicides were committed in the city last year, a total that exceeded the number of killings in New York and Los Angeles combined.