Removal of SANDF from DRC would signal cowardice, says Defence Minister
Captain Simon Mkhulu Bobe and Lance Corporal Irven Semono died after a mortar bomb was dropped on a South African military camp in the Eastern part of the DRC last week.
JOHANNESBURG - Defence Minister Thandi Modise said the withdrawal of South African National Defence Force (SANDF) members from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) would be an act of cowardice.
Modise was speaking at a mortal handover ceremony where the remains of two South African soldiers who died in the Democratic Republic of Congo were handed over to their families at the Waterkloof Airforce Base in Tshwane.
Captain Simon Mkhulu Bobe and Lance Corporal Irven Semono died after a mortar bomb was dropped on a South African military camp in the Eastern part of the DRC last week.
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Speaking to the media on the sidelines on Wednesday, Modise defended the presence of SANDF members in the country and dismissed reports that the two deaths came because the country's soldiers were ill-equipped.
Modise said a deployment scheduled for December is not just a peace enforcement mission.
“Will you congratulate us if we turn tail and come running home without concluding the mission that first of all Mandela set us on the path of? I don’t think South Africans would be proud of us.
“We just ran - nje ngama gwala (just like cowards) but we are not going into any country asking for war. We are going there trying to help build the peace”.