CAPE TOWN — The minibus taxi was traveling down a quiet rural road in eastern South Africa on Saturday night, when gunmen with automatic weapons opened fire, killing 11 people and critically injuring four.

The victims were all drivers for a Johannesburg minibus taxi association, said Brig. Vishnu Naidoo, a national police spokesman — the latest casualties in a decades-long battle over taxi routes that has claimed hundreds of lives.

The drivers had been returning from a colleague’s funeral in KwaZulu Natal Province when the ambush took place.

“Large parts of the industry have begun to look very Mafia-like, where you defend and expand your business turf through the use of violence,” said Mark Shaw, the director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime and author of a recent book on assassinations in South Africa.