Thursday 2 July 2026 marked the final withdrawal of South African National Defence Force (SANDF) personnel from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The withdrawal represents not just an end to the SANDF’s longest-ever deployment, but the end of an era for South African peacekeeping.

Although South Africa’s first combat force, Task Force One, did not arrive in the DRC until April 2003, the SANDF’s involvement with peace operations in the DRC can be traced back to the 1999 Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, when Colonel Hans Swart became South Africa’s first peacekeeper, deployed to Kampala, Uganda, to support the newly established UN Organisation Mission in the DRC (MONUC).

A single staff officer appointment would grow throughout the 2000s and 2010s into a force of approximately 1 300 personnel at its peak, comprising combat, specialist air cargo, medical, engineering, and aviation units. When the mission was renamed the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) in 2010, South Africa’s role expanded as its troops formed part of the UN’s Force Intervention Brigade, the first UN peacekeeping force authorised to take offensive action, enabling the Rooivalk attack helicopter’s combat debut against the M23 rebel group in 2013.

In 2025, South Africa’s decades-long commitment to peace in the DRC came under severe strain, not because of concerns over MONUSCO’s progress, but because of the failure of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (SAMIDRC). January 2025 saw one of the heaviest casualty events for the South African military in the democratic era, resulting in the deaths of 14 soldiers during clashes with Rwandan-backed M23 rebels in the eastern DRC. While the subsequent, and shambolic, withdrawal saw the return of approximately 1 700 troops, the South African government reaffirmed the country’s commitment to regional peace and multilateral peacekeeping.

Approximately 12 months later, near-identical language has accompanied the final MONUSCO drawdown, even as the logistics of bringing the last troops and equipment home have again proved contentious. The ongoing Ebola outbreak, coupled with delays ascribed to both the UN and the SANDF, has yet again led to serious concerns about the manner in which the SANDF manages such operations.

According to Rapport’s Erika Gibson, the final 350 SANDF troops deployed with MONUSCO, based at Beni in the eastern DRC, were originally meant to fly to Entebbe, Uganda, and then on to the SANDF’s mobilisation centre at De Brug outside Bloemfontein after the South African flag was lowered for the last time at the UN mission’s eastern DRC headquarters on 26 June. However, this plan soon fell apart after Uganda suspended flights out of the DRC over the Ebola outbreak, forcing the group onto an unarmed, roughly 12-hour bus journey along what is considered to be one of the region’s most dangerous routes.

Unnamed sources told Gibson that it would have been far safer to have flown the repatriated soldiers directly from Beni to De Brug, but according to the source, it seemed that safety considerations had been discarded. According to Rapport, soldiers had also been complaining about a lack of direction and clarity throughout their withdrawal, as it was unclear who was actually in command of the operation.

The SANDF has rejected suggestions of mismanagement, with Brigadier General Selinah Rawlins, Director of Defence Corporate Communication, telling Rapport that air transport from Beni was not viable as the airfield could not handle the size of aircraft required for the mission.

The homecoming has also attracted growing criticism as the troops, upon their arrival, were immediately confined to a mandatory 21-day Ebola quarantine at De Brug in what several complaints described as substandard conditions. The soldiers are currently being housed in tents in a fenced-off area as part of what the SANDF describes as a “standard military quarantine facility.”

The SANDF also strenuously rejected reports that have described the living conditions in the camp not just as inadequate, but dehumanising, taking particular exception to the description of the De Brug facilities as similar to a “concentration camp” and accusations that service personnel were being effectively treated like “animals”, describing such characterisations as “sensationalised and highly inaccurate.”

“To equate a standard military quarantine facility to a ‘concentration camp’ is not only factually malicious but deeply insults the professional standard of the South African Military Health Service (SAMHS) and the logistical teams working tirelessly on the ground,” SANDF Rawlins said in a media enquiry response to Rapport seen by DefenceWeb.

Unsurprisingly, the De Brug reports have drawn a political response, with the Economic Freedom Fighter’s Carl Niehaus condemning the conditions as dehumanising, arguing that the SANDF’s rebuttal was highly defensive but failed to provide any meaningful counterfactual evidence. He added that the party, through its members on the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans and the Joint Standing Committee on Defence, was calling for an urgent oversight visit covering accommodation, ablutions and medical facilities, confidential engagement with soldiers, and scrutiny of quarantine and catering arrangements.

“It is utterly unacceptable that men and women who risked their lives in the DRC — a deployment that has already claimed South African lives in previous phases — should return home to such conditions,” Niehaus said.

South Africa’s largest military labour organisation Sandu (SA National Defence Union) has members among those quarantined and enduring a harsh Free State winter. National Secretary Pikkie Greeff confirmed earlier today to this publication a number of issues had been taken up with military authorities regarding the situation on the ground at the mobilisation centre including the quarantine issue.

In her media response Rawlins had it “strict, mandatory 21-day quarantine protocols” were being observed to ensure public health safety at the mobilisation centre. This is questionable Greeff said, noting both the World Health Organisation (WHO) and South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) did not prescribe quarantine for Ebola, with a current death toll of 506 reported from 1 561 cases in President Félix Tshisekedi’s country.

Sandu has given the SANDF until later today to respond to issues raised with at least another 100 military personnel expected at the mobilisation centre later this week on their return from DRC.

Equipment recovery has proceeded on a separate, and similarly contentious, track. Two Ilyushin Il-76 heavy-lift cargo aircraft have been making daily flights between Air Force Base Waterkloof, just south of Pretoria, and Tanzania, repatriating various pieces of SANDF equipment over a roughly two-week period from late June to early July 2026. According to Rapport, the flights were made possible courtesy of a somewhat dubious R225 million contract between the South African National Defence Force and Armscor in February.

The use of these two particular aircraft has raised some concerns. Not only is the supplier/operator unknown, but one (7P-HAR) is registered in Lesotho while the other (XT-ABN) is registered in Burkina Faso, neither of which is thought to have the capacity to ensure the aircraft are fully compliant with government or international aviation standards.

The Economic Freedom Fighters has raised additional concerns over the growing domestic demands being placed on the SANDF and its personnel, particularly those returning from external deployments. These concerns are not unfounded, particularly as both SAMIDRC and MONUSCO have freed up a substantial number of personnel and equipment just as domestic demand rises. Operation Prosper, a standing deployment in support of the South African Police Service, has seen some 2 200 personnel deployed in five provinces, while over 3 000 additional troops have been placed on standby for anti-immigration marches through July.

“Even more disturbing is the emerging pattern of soldiers being demobilised from the DRC deployment only to be rapidly funnelled into new internal operations,” Niehaus said, adding, “the EFF is deeply concerned that exhausted troops emerging from quarantine at De Brug are being moved with undue haste into these high-pressure internal deployments without adequate rest, mental health decompression, or proper reintegration.”

Source: https://defenceweb.co.za/sa-defence-sa-defence/sandfs-27-year-congo-deployment-ends-but-quarantine-conditions-and-equipment-repatriation-contract-draw-concern/