South Africa’s Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has dismissed claims that the country is experiencing a “white genocide,” labelling them as unsubstantiated distortions of crime statistics.
His remarks came in response to US President Donald Trump’s repeated allegations, including at a recent meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa, where Trump asserted that thousands of white farmers were being murdered.
Mchunu addressed journalists on Friday while presenting the nation’s quarterly crime statistics.
He criticised what he described as a long-standing trend of misrepresenting South Africa’s crime data, particularly regarding violence on farms.
He emphasised that Black South Africans have historically been, and continue to be, the majority of victims in such attacks.
Referring to the most recent figures from January to March 2025, Mchunu revealed that two farm owners were murdered during that period, both of whom were Black.
In the same timeframe, a farm dweller, two farm workers, and a farm manager were also killed in farm-related violence, with only the farm dweller identified as white.
While acknowledging the country’s high crime levels, Mchunu stressed that violence affects all sectors of society, both rural and urban.
He added that in the previous quarter, from October to December 2024, there were 12 murders on farms, only one of which involved a white farm owner.
During talks at the White House on Wednesday, Trump reportedly presented media and video content to bolster his claims of white persecution in South Africa. However, news agency AFP has flagged these sources as containing numerous inaccuracies.
Mchunu also rebuffed Trump’s assertion that the South African government was orchestrating land seizures from white farmers.
He clarified that while some illegal land occupations have occurred — primarily in urban areas — there is no evidence of government-backed land grabs. “This claim is unsupported, even when repeated by those in positions of authority,” he remarked.
The police minister further explained that crime data typically does not categorise victims by race, but an exception was made in this instance to address the genocide narrative directly.
Moving forward, crime reports will distinguish between murders in rural, urban, and commercial farming contexts to provide more comprehensive insights.
According to the latest crime statistics, South Africa recorded a 12% year-on-year drop in the murder rate during the first quarter of 2025, with 5,727 homicides — roughly 63 murders per day.
This marks a decline from the previous financial year’s daily average of over 75 killings. Most victims were young Black men in urban centres.
Meanwhile, reports of rape slightly increased to nearly 10,700 cases during the same three-month period.
