Examining ‘white genocide’ claims in South Africa | BBC News

Examining ‘white genocide’ claims in South Africa | BBC News



South Africa’s new ambassador to Washington, Roelf Meyer, has a personal reason to challenge US President Donald Trump’s assertion that there is a genocide against white Afrikaners – he is “a born Afrikaner” himself.

The notion of a mass attack on the white Afrikaner minority in South Africa does not exist, he told the BBC, adding that his identity gave him the legitimacy to say so.

Meyer was one of the chief mediators to end white-minority rule known as apartheid in South Africa in the 1990s, and he was appointed ambassador to the US in April, after diplomatic relations between the US and South Africa plummeted.

In an interview with the BBC, Meyer said the facts about violence in South Africa had been misrepresented and he never got a clear answer about where this “misdirection of information” was coming from.

Last year, Trump accused South Africa of white genocide in a meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House and launched a US refugee pathway for Afrikaners.

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26 thoughts on “Examining ‘white genocide’ claims in South Africa | BBC News”

  1. Oh please there are farmers that pay in wine rather than cash – yt people are very happy in South Africa otherwise they would move – I have friends out in Cape Town 🤯🤯🤯

  2. The stats are given by the south african government. Based on the numbers from the police service. The police service is corrupt. Theirfore the stats are not correct. The country has 100+ laws against white people. In 1994 apartheid was not replaced by a democracy. It was change into reverse apartheid. The refugee program is for all minorities, not only afrikaners, but i can understand that afrikaners really want to leave south africa because they are more targeted than the other minorities. Speaking to the anti-afrikaner white people in South Africa does not prove that this does not exist. I would suggest speaking to the farming community that actually experience this. The city dwellers have no idea what they are talking about.

  3. ARM MURDER | ANNETTE KENNEALY — AN ACTIVIST AGAINST FARM ATTACKS BECAME A VICTIM HERSELF

    Annette Kennealy was an artist, graphic designer, former Democratic Alliance councillor and outspoken campaigner against farm attacks and murders in South Africa.

    On 21 May 2019, the 51-year-old was found brutally murdered inside her home on Welgevonden farm, outside Louis Trichardt — now Makhado — in Limpopo.

    The circumstances surrounding her death were particularly haunting: Kennealy had spent considerable time drawing attention to violence affecting farming and rural communities. Just days before her death, she had again posted about farm attacks on social media.

    THE MURDER

    The attack is believed to have taken place during the night of 20–21 May 2019.

    After family members repeatedly tried to contact Kennealy without success, someone went to the property to investigate.

    She was discovered inside the farmhouse, lying in a pool of blood.

    Police initially reported that she had suffered multiple wounds. Contemporary local reporting described severe injuries to her head and reported that a hammer and an iron pipe or rod were found at the scene.

    The brutality of the killing shocked the Soutpansberg community.

    Kennealy was well known locally not only for her political involvement, but also as an artist, animal lover and human-rights activist. She had served as a Democratic Alliance councillor between 2011 and 2014.

    AN EMPLOYEE ARRESTED

    Police subsequently arrested a 40-year-old employee who had worked for Kennealy.

    He appeared in the Louis Trichardt Magistrate's Court on charges of murder and house robbery and was initially denied bail.

    Importantly, early reports did not establish a definitive motive for the killing. Contemporary local reporting said that it would ultimately be for the court to determine what had led to the attack.

    AN ACTIVIST BECOMES A VICTIM

    What made Kennealy's death resonate far beyond Limpopo was the cause she had championed before she was killed.

    She had been outspoken about farm attacks and farm murders and regularly used social media to draw attention to violent incidents affecting rural communities. One of her final Facebook posts reportedly highlighted claims of ten farm attacks, including one murder, within four days.

    Her murder therefore carried a grim and painful irony: a woman who had repeatedly warned about violence on farms had herself become the victim of an exceptionally violent killing on the property where she lived.

    Her death also occurred during an intensely contested national debate over land reform and the proposed amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution to make explicit provision for expropriation without compensation. Those debates heightened anxiety among sections of the agricultural community, although no established evidence in the contemporary reports reviewed here demonstrates that Kennealy's murder was politically motivated.

    THE ISSUE REACHES THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE

    Within days of Kennealy's murder, farm attacks and murders were again receiving international attention.

    AfriForum's farming structures and the Southern Africa Agricultural Initiative (SAAI) were preparing to raise the issue at the United Nations' launch of the Decade of Family Farming in Rome. Contemporary reporting specifically cited Kennealy's killing as part of the renewed concern surrounding attacks on farms.

    For those campaigning for greater rural security, her death became another name attached to a much broader debate over violent crime, policing and the protection of people living and working in South Africa's farming communities.

    BEHIND EVERY FARM-MURDER STATISTIC IS A HUMAN BEING

    Annette Kennealy was not simply another number in a crime statistic.

    She was a mother, daughter, artist, public representative and activist — a woman who used her voice to draw attention to the suffering of others before violence took that voice from her.

    Whatever the wider political arguments surrounding farm attacks, one fact should never disappear beneath the statistics:

    Every victim had a name. Every victim had a family. Every victim had a life beyond the crime scene.

    Annette Kennealy — 1968/1969–21 May 2019. Remember the person behind the name. Remember the life behind the statistic.

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    Date of Publication: 26 September 2026.

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  4. no leaders are not attending the summit because it is contradictory. the UN general assembly, the bias is seen by the guest list and the actions. we might even say the funding reasons are questionable

  5. It's disappointing you did not speak to the families of the murdered victims or highlight the hate crimes.
    By your own logic, white people are killed at a higher rate in the US than minorities so there is no race hate crime in the US either.

  6. We are trying to show the undeniable persecution of the white farming communities. The notion that the per captain homicide rate of white farmers which is way above the national average is at normal levels is ludicrous. The use of torture
    also illustrates that it is not normal crime. If gender based violence can be highlighted above other forms of crime in South Africa why can't farm crime receive the same attention. I call it hypocrisy

  7. This coming Saturday 23 February 2019, would have been the 11th Birthday of Willemien Potgieter. On 1 December 2010, six black males brutally and violently attacked the Potgieter family on their farm Tweefontein, in Lindley in the Free State. During the horrific attack Willemien Potgieter (2) and mother Wilna were forced to watch the brutal slaying of father and husband Attie Potgieter who was stabbed 151 times with a garden fork and other gardening equipment. His body was left with the fork still in his throat. Willemien was then picked up by her blood covered feet and taken to the store room, she was then held up by her red hair and shot through the head and thrown in a box. Wilna was dragged through the house and executed with a gunshot through the neck.

  8. From what I understand the "help" package that the US is giving to the white South Africans is not great at all! They are not being given enough money for housing, it's not enough for a month's rent and they aren't really helping them find employment. They are being sent to areas that don't have a lot of employment opportunities available. It is not a fully planned out immigration plan, it's really a mess. Honestly, if they want to leave South Africa so bad, there are better places to go!!

  9. What depresses me is the number of people who have a—to be generous—superficial knowledge of South Africa, but are quite prepared to declare as fact what is or is not happening in South Africa based only on whether they are left or right wing.

  10. To deny racism is a horrible satanic belief system .. regardless of the skin color of the practitioner … racism is never justifiable… shame on the world for hiding the persecution and genocide of Afrikaner farmers , as much Shane as the killing of Palestinians in Gaza or Ukrainians by Russians or any other ethnic or racial based hatred manifesting in genocide

    May God protect us from said evils

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