South Africa’s newest crime statistics debunk claims {that a} genocide is being dedicated towards white individuals, the nation’s police minister has stated.
The extensively discredited allegation was amplified by US President Donald Trump on Wednesday, in a unprecedented assembly along with his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa.
Trump advised Ramaphosa that white farmers in South Africa had been being killed and “persecuted”.
On Friday, South African Police Minister Senzo Mchunu stated that between January and March, 5 out of the six individuals killed on farms had been black and one was white.
The white sufferer lived on a farm, whereas the black individuals who had been killed comprised two farm house owners, two staff and one supervisor.
Mchunu stated that within the earlier quarter, from October to December 2024, 12 murders on farms had been recorded. One of many 12 – a farm proprietor – was white.
It’s the first time that South Africa’s crime statistics have been damaged down by race, however Mchunu stated he had accomplished so because of the latest genocide claims.
“The historical past of farm murders within the nation has at all times been distorted and reported in an unbalanced method,” he stated.
In February, a South African choose dismissed the concept of a genocide as “clearly imagined” and “not actual”, when ruling in an inheritance case involving a rich benefactor’s donation to a white supremacist group.
Claims of genocide in South Africa have been circulating for years, catching the eye of right-wing teams within the US.
Ramaphosa visited the White Home on Wednesday in an try and reset the international locations’ relations after Trump granted asylum to just about 60 Afrikaners – descendants of primarily Dutch settlers who arrived within the seventeenth Century – saying they had been “victims of unjust racial discrimination”.
Through the assembly, which was broadcast dwell, Trump ambushed Ramaphosa with movies and pictures supposed to help his declare of a white genocide.
The BBC found that this “evidence” contained numerous falsehoods.
“Now we have respect for the US as a rustic, we’ve respect for the individuals in that nation and for President Trump, however we’ve no respect for the genocide story. It’s completely unfounded and unsubstantiated,” Mchunu stated on Friday.
Crime stays an enormous downside in South Africa, the minister acknowledged, however added that every one sections of society are impacted.
Mchunu additionally rejected allegations, repeated by Trump, that authorities was expropriating land held by white farmers.
Earlier this yr, Ramaphosa signed a controversial legislation which allowed the federal government to grab privately-owned land with out compensation in some circumstances. The South African authorities says no land has been seized but underneath the act.
The legislation follows years of requires land reform in South Africa, the place the white minority possess the overwhelming majority of privately held land and wealth within the nation, greater than 30 years for the reason that racist system of apartheid ended.
Relations between South Africa and the US have slumped since Trump took workplace in January. In addition to providing asylum to Afrikaners, the US chief has lower support to South Africa and expelled its ambassador.
