City Press reports that hundreds of mourners packed the Methodist Church in Ngcobo on Tuesday morning to pay tribute to the five officers and a soldier gunned down at the local police station last week.  

Premier Phumulo Masualle, Eastern Cape provincial ANC chair, Oscar Mabuyane, and the provincial police management attended the church service.  The church hall come alive as members of police union Popcru sang “siyaya noba besidubula, noba besibulala, siyaya”, which can be loosely translated as: “We are going forward even if they shoot at us, we will never retreat, we are going forward.”  Four of the 10 suspects appeared at the Ngcobo Magistrates’ Court on Monday to face charges of murder, attempted murder and illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.  The case was postponed and the accused will appear again on 8 March.  Meanwhile in an unrelated incident, three more police officers were killed in Ngcobo last night after the vehicle in which they were travelling collided with a horse.

• Read this report in full at City Press
• See too, More bad luck for Engcobo cops as three die in car crash, at The Citizen

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