A SWATF unit, the 101 Battalion, with twenty Casspirs  and two trucks had been sent forward to occupy Donguena. They ran into an ambush 2 km south of Donguena with Cubans destroying or damaging four Casspirs. The South Africans withdrew at dusk having lost seven men and one captured, and failed to retrieve the fourth Casspir and its equipment. The Cubans were said to have lost forty-five soldiers