President Cyril Ramaphosa has thanked the more than 160 government officials on their successful mission to repatriate, test and quarantine South Africans from Wuhan city in China which was the epicentre of the coronavirus.

The team of officials from the military, health department and  South African Airways undertook a mission over two weeks ago to fetch 114 South Africans from China during the coronavirus outbreak that has since been declared a global pandemic.

They brought them back into the country where they were all quarantined at The Ranch Resort in Limpopo for 14 days and have now been declared negative from the Covid-19.

They will all be going to their respective homes from tomorrow.

“I’d like to thank you on behalf of all South Africans for being 'Thuma’d'. For being sent. For agreeing to be sent and what even makes it more important is that once a mission was conceptualised , you all said ‘Send me, President’,” Ramaphosa said.

In expressing his gratitude at The Ranch Resort, Ramaphosa said that their names would be written in South Africa’s history books for having volunteered to go on such a dangerous mission.

“You were being send on a dangerous mission. I characterise the mission that you undertook as a most dangerous mission. You were going into unknown territory. A territory where we knew we had people who had contracted coronavirus.

“You are, as the premier said, going to be those people whose names are going to be clearly written in the history our country, because this is unprecedented. Our country and nation has never been through a process like this,” Ramaphosa said.