Two members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) serving in the United Nations mission in eastern DR Congo (MONUSCO) have died, the country's army said on Friday, March 1.

The incident on Thursday occurred when "one of [the soldiers] shot and killed the other with their service weapon before turning the weapon on themselves with fatal consequences," the SANDF said in a statement.

"The SANDF has convened a Board of Inquiry to work with the MONUSCO command to investigate the incident and the circumstances that led to it," read the statement, adding that the soldiers' families had been informed about the unfortunate incident as their remains waited to be repatriated to South Africa.

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The incident follows the death of two other South African soldiers killed on February 14 in an attack in eastern DR Congo when a mortar bomb hit one of their bases in the volatile region. The soldiers served in the South African contingent of Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional force, which is part of a huge Congolese government-led coalition fighting the M23 rebels.

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South Africa has two contingents in eastern DR Congo, one serving under the UN mission and the other under the SADC regional force, also known as the SAMIDRC.

On February 12, President Cyril Ramaphosa said his country would deploy 2,900 troops under SAMIDRC to fight armed groups. South African opposition parties criticised Ramaphosa for deploying the troops in the conflict-ridden eastern DR Congo, saying the SANDF had no capacity to fight the M23.

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The South African government has also been criticised for deploying troops to fight alongside the Congolese government coalition, which includes MONUSCO, Burundian forces, and militias like the FDLR, a UN-sanctioned terrorist group linked to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

The M23 rebels accuse the coalition of carrying out genocide against Congolese Tutsi communities. The SADC deployment in mid- December 2023 raised fears that the eastern DR Congo conflict, which has also affected relations between Rwanda, DR Congo and Burundi, could widen into a regional crisis.

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Regional and international players, such as the African Union, the European Union and the United States government, called for a return to the Luanda and Nairobi peace processes which have been in a stalemate for months as the Congolese government pursued a military option.

Eastern DR Congo has been volatile for nearly 30 years and remains home to more than 130 armed groups. Multiple interventions have failed to end decades of violence.