Over 8 000 members of South Africa’s armed forces are in Richards Bay in northern KwaZulu-Natal for Armed Forces Day on Tuesday.
President Cyril Ramaphosa will take the salute as part of a military parade on Tuesday morning.
Prior to this, he is expected to lay a wreath in nearby Empangeni at a World War 2 monument site.
Armed Forces Day was instituted in 2012 to honour the work of South African National Defence Force (SANDF) members in service of the country, and to commemorate those who have fallen in the line of duty.
SANDF’s Captain Prince Tshabalala says, “We are very proud, we have visited province to province and we will continue to educate our public. We’ll continue to make sure that our people understand that we are not in war with them, we are deployed to serve the national interests of the country, when there is instability in support of the SAPS. However the main role of ours is to safeguard the sovereignity of South Africa. We must ensure our people can sleep at night knowing our borders are safe, at sea in the air and on land.”
GALLERY: South African National Defence Force rehearsals:
