Wounded in battle, abandoned at home: Lesotho soldiers believe

disability payouts were calculated from the wrong base figure, and justice remains out of reach

By Billy Ntaote

Twenty Lesotho Defence Force soldiers injured during a 2021 deployment to Mozambique are still waiting for compensation that they believe they are owed. Their military leaders have changed their minds and given mixed messages on how injuries were assessed and payments were calculated. However, they are now sticking to a calculation for injuries that means pay-outs are less than the SADC agreements for this mission require.  

The soldiers were deployed to Mozambique in July 2021 under the SADC mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) to quash the Islamic insurgency in Cabo Delgado province. Their story is not just one of physical scars, but of a struggle against bureaucratic neglect, opaque medical tests, unclear money trails, and a system that, the soldiers—speaking on condition of anonymity due to threats of being charged with mutiny —allege, values silence over justice.

During the two-year mission, Lesotho deployed 300 troops in three contingents. Twenty soldiers sustained injuries and, although they have received some compensation for disabilities and wounds sustained, they argue that they were short changed and want the balance owed as set out in bi-lateral agreements finalised ahead of the mission including the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) signed between SADC and Mozambique, as well as the secret/restricted SAMIM Standing Operating Procedures.

MNN Centre for Investigative Journalism (MNN) has copies of these documents, which set out how payment should have been calculated for specific injuries (see sidebar). Injured LDF soldiers argue that the compensation paid to them for injuries sustained was based on a threshold of USD 50,000 instead of the USD 70,000 threshold set out in the SOFA and SAMIM documents.

This fight for more injury compensation is playing out at the same time as another battle that involves salary remuneration for all soldiers deployed during the mission.  All LDF soldiers returning from Mozambique were paid R100,000 each by the  Lesotho government as a form of mission compensation. However, the soldiers claim that this is not the full amount owed to them. They believe there were additional mission allowances from the SADC Secretariat that were paid across to an LDF account for facilitating SAMIM payments for the upkeep of deployed troops that should have been distributed to soldiers but were never received. LDF Commander Lieutenant General Mojalefa Letsoela and Colonel Tau Ntsohi confirmed to MNN that such an account was opened to ease payments for the soldiers while on their mission.  

While the LDF top brass have given conflicting statements about what threshold was used to calculate compensation for injuries, they are now standing firm that payments were based on the lower threshold of USD 50 000. 

Soldiers who had been injured in the mission and who spoke to MNN on condition of anonymity in separate interviews for fear of being court-martialled for mutiny, describe how they have had contradictory information from the military on the assessments of their injuries and also on what threshold was used to calculate the payments made. Soldiers suspect foul play, are questioning whether military leaders are insisting that the compensation be calculated according to the lower threshold because they have pocketed the balance of the money owed to soldiers.

On 11 November 2023,  more than a year after the injured soldiers got back home, the military sent ten of the  20  soldiers for medical tests to assess their injuries. While it is unclear why only half of the injured group were invited for assessment, at Queen Elizabeth II Hospital’s Lakeside premises in Maseru, the tests on the ten were conducted by the Lesotho Medical Board’s Dr Maama Mojela. But, after the testing, the LDF’s Colonel Tau Ntsohi stepped in and told the soldiers that the findings of these assessments would not be considered.

“In fact, he said Dr Mojela’s medical test results had been thrown out and that Makoanyane Military Hospital would examine the soldiers’ degrees of disability itself,” said one soldier.

The soldiers said this came as a shock because they knew the Military Hospital did not have the required specialists to determine their degree of disability.

On 30 July 2024, the 20 injured soldiers all confirmed how they were called to a meeting in the commander’s boardroom with Colonel Ntsohi and Brigadier Mantso Sello, who told them that compensation for injuries sustained would be calculated based on their degree of disability. This calculation, they explained, would be a percentage of USD 50,000. The soldiers told MNN that Ntsohi and Sello claimed to know nothing about the USD 70,000 figure for calculating compensation for injuries, even though it is documented in the SOFA agreement. 

At the time of this July meeting, Brigadier Sello was a Lieutenant Colonel. He has since been appointed the Director General at the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences by Prime Minister Samuel Matekane.  

MNN has a copy of the SOFA document as well as other SAMIM documents labelled “secret” or “restricted”. These confirm  that the injured soldiers should have been compensated for their injuries as a percentage of USD70,000.00 (see sidebar) 

As part of its investigation into this matter, MNN was granted an interview with military top brass on 12 December 2024 at the LDF headquarters. In this meeting, which was also attended by Lieutenant General Mojalefa Letsoela, Lieutenant Colonel Mantso Sello, Military Intelligence Chief Brigadier Serame Posholi, and Public Affairs Office representative Mothibi, MNN asked about the assessments and compensation threshold. Colonel Ntsohi explained that all 20 soldiers had been sent for more medical assessments on 11 December, just a day before MNN met with the military leaders. Colonel Ntsohi added that Dr. Mojela at Maseru District Hospital had done the assessments once again, but this time he was accompanied by Dr Lieketseng Petlane. 

During the MNN interview, Colonel Ntsohi stated that: “Our people who suffered injuries, the process of establishing the extent of the  degree of disability in order for them to be paid compensation is underway.”

Lieutenant Colonel Sello added that “all injuries are being assessed by both military and civilian medical boards to ensure fairness. The degree of disability determines compensation, not the injury itself. Some may not qualify for any payment if fully recovered.”

On the threshold issue, Ntsohi also seemed to have changed his mind when he disclosed that the USD 70,000 base figure (not the USD 50,000 figure as previously stated) determined compensation for the degree of disability.

“Another issue is that at one of the SADC summits, it was shown that the SADC Secretariat had made savings, and it was considered that there would be movement from USD 50 000 as the base for compensation to USD 70 000,” he explained.

At this meeting with MNN, Lieutenant General Mojalefa Letsoela did not specifically mention the compensation threshold, but he did say that the LDF soldiers were, in general, being used to ferment instability within the army by external forces.

When MNN raised the matter of the differing sets of assessments on injured soldiers, Ntsohi said the injured soldiers “yesterday (11–12 December 2024) were at the medical board of the Ministry of Health for their tests to be undertaken.”

When questioned about the initial tests conducted by Dr Mojela on 11 November 2023, Ntsohi said the results caused confusion and were discarded.

“What happened with Dr Mojela’s tests? I do not want to bring it up, as it brought various misunderstandings and misinterpretations to the soldiers. No one was denied access to Dr Mojela, but what was done did not achieve the desired goal for the assessments. It is still an ongoing process.

“Now our Military Hospital (Makoanyane Military Hospital) has made its assessment, reasonably so. This was to establish the status of the soldiers’ degrees of disability based on sustained injuries so that their results can be compared to the other tests conducted by civilian hospitals, and in order for medical reports indicating the degree of disability to be used for payment depending on each soldier’s degree of disability percentage,” said Ntsohi.

When MNN contacted  Dr. Mojela for comment on the assessments and how they could differ from the first set he did, he said that he had nothing to fear or hide as he did his job properly. He said he would only provide a detailed interview after being given authorisation to speak by his supervisors. This never happened, and soldiers were never privy to the results of this round of assessment.

MNN approached the LDF once more for comment. Minister in the Prime Minister’s office, Limpho Tau, told MNN that the injured soldiers’ compensation claims were being dealt with, and they are at an advanced stage in Botswana at the SADC headquarters. MNN’s attempt to ask further questions came to nothing. MNN was once again referred to Minister Tau’s spokesperson, who responded to the list of questions, saying that the minister had answered all the questions had been answered in the LDF interview with MNN on December 12, 2024. 

Payments to compensate for their injuries were finally made to injured soldiers on 26 March 2025. But, the LDF had clearly changed its mind about the threshold for calculating payments, as they were based on the lower USD 50,000 threshold. Soldiers queried this and, in response, on 17 June 2025, LDF Major General Khomo Mohobo told all soldiers that they were not owed anything; they had been paid their dues. The matter was closed.

When MNN contacted the LDF again for a new comment on 8 July 2025, the LDF’s public affairs officer, Lieutenant Colonel Sakeng Lekola, said matters concerning the deployment can only be responded to by Minister Tau. MNN was once again invited to send questions to the minister via his spokesperson, Morojele. This time, Morojele did not respond to questions until a set deadline expired. After the deadline had expired, she claimed that she was seeking responses from various responsible offices, but without giving a deadline for submission of responses.

Soldiers Decry Withdrawal from SAMIM and Forced Loans

One soldier recalls the day in July 2022 when a Ram Combat vehicle in which he was travelling overturned under enemy fire.

“We were supposed to be treated in Mozambique, like soldiers from Botswana or South Africa. Instead, we were flown home to Lesotho—not for our benefit, but to clear us off the payroll,” he says, bitterness etched into his voice.

Back home in Maseru, the soldier and his injured comrades discovered that their injuries were not their only challenge, but their deployment had ended the moment they were hospitalised in Lesotho. 

“We only found out we’d been replaced when our September and October (2022) allowances arrived in November—money we were later told to repay, with interest,” says another soldier clutching receipts proving how he used the disputed funds.

The soldiers describe how they were summoned to meetings at the LDF Commander, Letsoela’s office, between 5 and 8 December 2022. Letsoela reportedly told the soldiers they should produce receipts of medical bills incurred since their arrival in Lesotho from Mozambique to be reimbursed.

Letsoela also allegedly informed them to return all the funds received on 18 November 2022, as they were no longer part of the SAMIM mission in Mozambique from the moment they were airlifted and brought to Lesotho for hospitalisation.

Hospitalisation in Lesotho, they argue, was not understood as other SAMIM-deployed soldiers from other countries received treatment for their injuries within Mozambique.

“We told the commander that we had used the money, and we were not aware that we were no longer part of the mission, as there had never been any communication of our withdrawal from the mission. Only two soldiers said they had not used the money, and all others who reported having used the money had to produce proof of how we used the funds,” said another soldier.

They said the Salaries Officer was instructed to meet with the LDF Scheme Committee to ask the scheme to loan the soldiers money to repay the erroneously received funds.

“We were paid about M50,000 and now have to repay the money to the LDF scheme as M56,000 for a mistake that was not our doing,” said another soldier.

“How can we be paid for months we were not in Mozambique? Who signed off on these payments, and for whose benefit?” asked an injured soldier.

The soldiers had to return about M350,000 to the SAMIM account held by the LDF, according to MNN calculations.

In response to questions about the repayments and withdrawal from Mozambique, Lieutenant General Letsoela insists the repatriation was for the soldiers’ own good:

“Our concept was that we would fly the nine hours to Cabo Delgado and fetch our injured soldiers and ensure that within 24 hours, they are home and receiving the medical attention they require. Countries had to have their own rescue means. The payments made after their return were system errors, and the law requires recovery of such funds.”

Letsoela told MNN the reason for these flights to fetch injured soldiers was that the referral hospital in Mozambique had limitations owing to the pressure of many accidents it was already handling.

He said: “When the battle vehicle overturned, we followed procedure, and then my soldiers, about seven, were properly managed when they got home. They were taken to our hospital, and some were referred to Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital.”

Responding to questions about why the soldiers were brought home and replaced with others but not informed, the commander said it was not a time to wait as the war was raging in Nangade and “we had to maintain a fighting strength of 120 personnel. So, there was no time to wait for soldiers to recover.”

Letsoela added that the departure of seven soldiers “was a hell of a gap. Should we wait for someone who we can see will have a problem being redeployed? No, that cannot be.”

He further said that when these soldiers came home to receive medical treatment, others had to replace them.

“It was an instant move, and we could not allow even 12 hours without having replaced these injured soldiers,” said Letsoela.

Colonel Ntsohi corroborated Letsoela’s response and added that, in line with LDF policy, they acted swiftly to fly home soldiers disabled from continuing their deployment due to injuries to be hospitalised closer to their families.

“I believe that if we had decided to keep these soldiers in Mozambique while they were injured and then these injuries led to deaths, the noise we would face from their families would be immense, and we would be accused of negligence,” said Ntsohi.

He argued that Lesotho’s agreement with SADC was to deploy 120 personnel, and SADC would not pay for more than 120 soldiers.

“Lesotho government laws say that we cannot pay a soldier as though they are outside the country when in actual fact they are in the country, especially when they have also been disconnected from the function they were in Mozambique for,” he added.

Ntsohi said salary payments received by the hospitalised soldiers were owing to system glitches.

“The law says that the money must be recovered; it is a legal stipulation, not the commander’s or mine. Arrangements were made to make the repayments easier on them by borrowing money from the LDF Scheme,” said Ntsohi.

He said it was shocking to hear that the soldiers felt they were still part of the mission when injured. He said, “Complaints that they were not notified they were no longer part of the mission when they knew they were no longer mission-worthy are shocking. They had been brought home under circumstances of bad injuries. It would not be proper to say they should be hospitalised and still earn allowances.

“For monies received erroneously, it would be improper not to recover those monies accordingly,” said Ntsohi.

This story was produced by the MMN Centre for Investigative Journalism and syndicated by the IJ Hub on behalf it’s member centre network in Southern Africa.