A US-funded flight carrying the primary group of 49 white South Africans to be granted refugee standing has landed in Washington, after leaving Johannesburg on Sunday.
Relations between South Africa and the US have been tense for months, after President Donald Trump stated that members of the nation’s Afrikaner minority had been victims of “racial discrimination”.
This was dismissed by South Africa’s International Minister Ronald Lamola, who stated on Monday “there isn’t any persecution of white Afrikaner South Africans”, including that police reviews debunk President Trump’s assertion.
South Africa says that any allegations of persecution wouldn’t meet the edge “required beneath home and worldwide refugee regulation”.
The BBC has contacted the United Nations refugee company, UNHCR, which confirmed it was not concerned on this resettlement scheme, nor was it requested to participate in any of the screening.
Given the Trump administration’s hardline place on refugees, it’s notable the method didn’t contain the UNHCR – displaying how a lot the white Afrikaners have been fast-tracked and in a manner that has not been carried out for others.
Democrat Senator Jeanne Shaheen described the resettlement as “baffling” given the “indefinite suspension for hundreds of authentic asylum seekers” from different international locations.
Senator Shaheen, who can also be the rating member of the Senate International Relations Committee, stated in her assertion that “final yr, the UN discovered no South Africans had been eligible for refugee standing”.
Requested straight on Monday why Afrikaners’ refugee purposes had been expedited in comparison with different teams, Trump claimed a “genocide” was happening and that “white farmers” particularly had been being focused.
“Farmers are being killed, they occur to be white, however whether or not they’re white or black makes no distinction to me,” he stated.
The US has criticised home South African coverage, accusing the federal government of seizing land from white farmers with none compensation – one thing which the southern African nation says has not occurred.
One in every of Trump’s closest advisers, South African-born Elon Musk, has beforehand stated there was a “genocide of white folks” in South Africa and accused the federal government of passing “racist possession legal guidelines”.
The claims of a genocide of white folks have been widely discredited.
Figures from the South African police present that in 2024, 44 murders had been recorded on farms and smaller plots of agricultural land, with eight of these killed being farmers.
South Africa doesn’t report on crime statistics damaged down by race however a majority of the nation’s farmers are white, whereas different folks dwelling on farms, corresponding to employees, are principally black.
Afrikaner creator Max du Preez informed the BBC’s Newsday radio programme that claims of persecution of white South Africans had been a “complete absurdity” and “based mostly on nothing”.
He added that South Africans had been “shocked” by the resettlement scheme and that it had extra to do with “inside politics” within the US than South Africa.
Bilateral tensions between the US and South Africa have been strained for a while as President Trump tasked his administration with formulating plans to doubtlessly resettle Afrikaners, a bunch with principally Dutch ancestry, within the US.
In March, South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, was expelled after accusing President Trump of utilizing “white victimhood as a canine whistle”, resulting in the US accusing Mr Rasool of “race-baiting”.
The US has additionally criticised South Africa for taking an “aggressive” place in opposition to Israel on the Worldwide Court docket of Justice (ICJ), the place Pretoria has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s authorities of genocide against people in Gaza – a declare which the Israelis strongly reject.
The present group of white South African refugees contains 49 folks, who landed in Washington DC afterward Monday, earlier than persevering with to Texas.
White South Africans make up simply 7.3% of the inhabitants, however personal the overwhelming majority of privately held farmland, in line with a 2017 authorities report.
In January President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a controversial regulation which permits the federal government to grab privately owned land with out compensation in sure circumstances, when it’s deemed “equitable and within the public curiosity”.
There had been anger in South Africa over the sluggish tempo of land reform within the three many years for the reason that finish of the racist apartheid system.
President Trump’s openness to accepting Afrikaner refugees comes because the US has engaged in a wider crackdown on migrants and asylum seekers from different international locations.
Further reporting by Khanyisile Ngcobo in Johannesburg, Nomia Iqbal & Cai Pigliucci in Washington DC
