PRETORIA - Two hundred and forty nine SANDF soldiers landed at Air Force Base Waterkloof in Pretoria on Friday night. These troops are the first batch of South African soldiers returning from the DRC.
Initially the group was supposed to land at the Air Force Base Bloemspruit in Bloemfontein where Defence Minister, Angie Motshekga, and others were awaiting their arrival but this was changed.
The troops were deployed as part of a Southern African Development Community force called SAMIDRC.
Fourteen SA soldiers were killed in January as M23 rebels pushed towards the East of DRC and later the mission was aborted.
Since the end of April troops have been withdrawing from the DRC using trucks to travel overland. The withdrawal had a number of challenges including logistical delays due to the heavy equipment that had to be moved from their base near Goma.
The SANDF said just over 30 trucks had to transport SA Military equipment from Goma to Tanzania. Other heavy equipment were transported through the Dar es Salaam port to South Africa.