The names of two junior non-commissioned officers (NCOs) from 5 SA Infantry (SAI) Battalion who died in in an apparent weekend murder/suicide incident at an SA Army base in Mpumalanga have been made public.
The SA National Defence Force (SANDF), via its Directorate Corporate Communication (DCC), named them as Corporal Simphiwe Philani Nene and Lance Corporal Eric Thanduyiso Ngubane. They were part of a detachment from the Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal, battalion doing a border protection tour of duty. Their ages were not made public.
What DCC termed an “altercation” early on Saturday, 21 June, saw soldiers attacked, apparently by a knife wielding colleague, after which the assailant stabbed himself in the neck later succumbing to his self-inflicted wounds. A fellow soldier he stabbed died, with DCC not making known how many other soldiers were wounded and the seriousness of their injuries. An earlier DCC statement on the Macadamia stabbings had it the soldier who attacked his fellow infantrymen was “approved for withdrawal from duty” without any further detail.
As is standard operating procedure (SOP) an SA Army board of inquiry (BoI) into the stabbing and deaths is underway. At the same time according to DCC, the incident is being investigated by the SA Police Service (SAPS).
As one of the 15 sub-units on active Operation Corona duty at any one time, the 5 SAI component was based at Macadamia military base tasked with keeping a weather eye on a stretch of the South African border with Mozambique, including the Lebombo port of entry, about 160 km away. Apart from being an active base for the national border protection tasking, Macadamia is utilised as a mini-mobilisation centre for Corona deployment by the Mpumalanga Joint Tactical Headquarters. It was upgraded to this status three years ago and has an airstrip once rated to accommodate small SA Air Force (SAAF) cargo and personnel aircraft such as Cessna 208s from 41 Squadron and 44 Squadron’s C212s.
When the upgrade to mini-mobilisation status was made public it was stated as part of improved soldier mobilisation with the emphasis on border protection and unspecified allied (Op Corona) taskings.
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