Police Minister, Senzo Mchunu, says they are aiming to raise more than R6.6 million for the SAPS Education Trust. It funds the schooling and tertiary studies of the children of officers killed in the line of duty.

Last year, 18 beneficiaries matriculated with 17 distinctions among them.

Mchunu is part of a golf day at the Mount Edgecombe Country Club in Durban to raise funds for the initiative.

He says the fund aims to make it possible for the children of fallen officers to still fulfill their dreams.

“It is an extremely noble thing to do for the children of those who were with us. And that’s the best we can do, looking after their children and their loved ones. And through this fund then be able to do what they otherwise would have done. And I think we are a beautiful organisation. Whoever innovated this idea, we need to thank him or her, and say well done, we will continue to do this. We can only want it to grow,” says Mchunu.

The police minister says ways should be found to decrease the number of police officers dying on duty amid increasingly violent crime.

In the 2023-2024 financial year, 39 officers died on duty nationally, 29 of whom were shot.

Mchunu elaborates, “And they perished and fell in the line of duty, very often very brutally, and in an unexpected way. And often very painful to imagine, even to yourselves. And it is traumatising to colleagues who would have been there on the scene when one of your colleagues gets taken out just like that.”