Legal steps underway to have missing soldier declared dead

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Legal steps have been started to declare a soldier who drowned while swimming at a KwaZulu-Natal beach more than three years ago dead.

Johannesburg daily The Citizen reported a SA National Defence Force (SANDF) board of enquiry found that the soldier, Private Junior Ngwane of Soweto, drowned while swimming in the sea at Banana Beach, Port Shepstone, on 6 August 2013.

He disappeared without trace while he and fellow soldiers were swimming.

SANDF Chief General Solly Shoke said in court papers Ngwane was part of a group who had done a two year emergency care technology course and were relaxing after successfully completing it.
“He and some of the others were swimming further out, but Ngwane started struggling and stayed in the same place when the others decided to return to the beach. They screamed at him to come back, but he disappeared and was not seen again,” the paper reported, adding one of his colleagues attempted swimming out to where Ngwane was last seen but “was ordered out because the sea was rough”.

There were apparently no lifeguards on duty at the beach at the time.

The Port Shepstone rescue unit and police searched for Ngwane in boats and a helicopter was also used in the search but Ngwane’s body was never recovered.

An SANDF board of enquiry found he had drowned and the High Court proceedings now underway are part of having Ngwane declared dead. The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria has granted an order giving interested parties until May 12 to give reasons why an order should not be granted that Ngwane’s death was presumed to have occurred on the day he disappeared.