SA SOLDIERS TO RECEIVE FESTIVE SEASON GIFTS
South African companies have donated R635,000 to buy gifts for the 5000 troops who will be deployed in the country and further afield over the festive season.
It was though the goodwill gifts that the soldiers would know there was appreciation for work they had done and continued to do, said SA National Defence Force (SANDF) Chief General Godfrey Ngwenya.
"Burundi today is a free country thanks to your sons and daughters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). There is light at the end of the tunnel also thanks to them," he said.
The gifts would be handed to South African soldiers in Burundi and the DRC in December during a morale-boosting trip by SANDF high brass and sponsors.
The group also hoped to visit South African soldiers in the African Union's peacekeeping force in Darfur, Sudan -- unless the peacekeepers were kicked out before then.
Gifts would also be distributed to troops in Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia an Eritrea, Gabon.
The gift this year would include a camping chair, a cooler bag and religious books, and would be largest since the project was started with the distribution of food parcels in 2001 by SANDF Sergeant-Major Jakes Jacobs.
He had wanted to start something similar to the "Dankie-sê-tannie-pakkies" he received from the women of South Africa during his time in Angola with the South African Defence Force.
South Africa has about 2700 troops deployed outside the country's borders as part of United Nations and AU peacekeeping operations.
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13 Septembre 2006 à 17:52 dans
- zsandf (anglais)
