The NW police are mourning the loss of three provincial tracking officers who died in a motor accident in Engcobo, Eastern Cape, in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
According to Brig. Sabata Mokgwabone, the head of NW South African Police Service (SAPS) communications, the vehicle in which the four members of the provincial tracking team were travelling collided with a stray animal along the R61 near Xholosini village.
‘Three of them died instantly and the fourth one was seriously injured and transported to a hospital for medical attention,’ he said. Mokgwabone says the officers were on the way to Mthatha in the Eastern Cape.
They left Potchefstroom on Monday afternoon to trace a suspect in two cases of murder, one of rape and another one of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm (GBH) in the province between 2008 and 2011.
The provincial commissioner, Lt-Genl Baile Motswenyane and the member of the executive committee (MEC) for Community Safety and Transport Management, Dr Mpho Motlhabane expressed their heartfelt condolences to the families of the deceased. They also wished the injured policeman a speedy recovery. ‘This is an unfortunate, tragic incident in which we lost three of our committed members in the line of duty. We pray that their families and the members of the SAPS in the province have the strength to endure in this moment of grief,’ she concluded.
The vehicle crashed near the same village where a gang stormed into a police station a week ago and killed five police officers and a retired member of the SANDF. Some of the suspects were later killed by the police at a cult church called Mancoba Seven Angels Ministry.
Mokgwabone says confusion arose when the NW police members were in the Eastern Cape on the day of the memorial service of the slain police officers. There was talk that they had been assigned to investigate the police killings. ‘This was not the case,’ he said.
