Category World News

US President Donald Trump held a contentious meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House on Wednesday, when he repeated allegations that he and members of his administration have previously levelled, suggesting that white South African farmers are being systematically killed.

To prove his point, Trump showed the South African leader online videos, speeches and news articles.

“Generally, they’re white farmers and they’re fleeing South Africa, and …. it’s a very sad thing to see. But I hope we can have an explanation of that because I know you don’t want that,” the US president said, as the visiting delegation looked on in disbelief.

Tensions have been escalating between the United States and South Africa since Trump took office this year, with Washington cutting off aid to Africa’s largest economy and sending back its ambassador last month.

But how true were Trump’s claims during the meeting in the Oval Office? Here is a fact check:

Trump repeated claims that there’s a ‘white genocide’ in South Africa: Is there?

No, there is not. Suggestions by Trump that a white genocide may be taking place have been repeatedly debunked by South African officials and independent analysts — and by data.

“So we take [refugees] from many locations if we feel there’s persecution or genocide going on,” the US president said in the Oval Office on Wednesday.

“And we had a lot of people, I must tell you Mr. President [Ramaphosa], we have had a tremendous number of people, especially since they’ve seen this – generally they’re white farmers, and they’re fleeing South Africa.”

Earlier this month, 59 white South Africans arrived in the US as part of a refugee programme set up by Trump to offer sanctuary to them.

Trump’s claim echoes white nationalist beliefs that legislation in South Africa aimed at rectifying apartheid is now, in fact, discriminatory against the Afrikaner community.

Right-wing organisations, such as the Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum, have been championing a narrative that Afrikaners are under an existential threat.

The facts suggest otherwise.

“There is no credible evidence to support the claim that white farmers in South Africa are being systematically targeted as part of a campaign of genocide,” Anthony Kaziboni, a senior researcher at the University of Johannesburg, told Al Jazeera.

While South Africa does not break down crime statistics by race, according to the most recent data from April to December 2024 provided by the government, there were 19,696 murders during this period.

Only 36 of those murders were connected to farms, and only seven of the victims were farmers. The number of white victims is unclear. The remaining 29 victims were farm workers, who are predominantly Black in South Africa.

The scale of farm murders captured by the South African government’s data broadly matches the data of even AfriForum. The group says that 50 and 49 farm murders took place in 2022 and 2023, respectively.

“Genocide is a grave term, legally defined by the UN as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. That threshold is not met in the case of South Africa’s farm attacks,” Kaziboni said.

White South Africans constitute 7 percent of the nation’s population but own more than 70 percent of its land. They also have about 20 times more wealth than Blacks on average. In corporate South Africa, white individuals occupy 62 percent of top management positions, while 17 percent of leadership roles are held by Black managers.

Are there white ‘burial sites’ on the side of a South African highway?

The White House staff played a video clip at the Oval Office that Trump insisted showed “burial sites of thousands of white farmers” with white crucifixes lined up along a local highway.

When Ramaphosa asked him where the footage was from, saying, “This, I’ve never seen”, Trump claimed it was in South Africa.

Trump was right — the visuals were from South Africa. But he was also wrong — they weren’t images of burial sites.

The images had been shared by Tesla CEO Elon Musk earlier this year, too, as evidence that a white genocide was taking place.

However, local records and a report at the time from the South African Institute of Race Relations confirmed that crosses were symbolically planted on the side of the road during a 2020 protest related to the killings of white South African couple Glenn and Vida Rafferty on a farm.

They were not gravestones, as Trump falsely asserted.

According to South Africa’s Transvaal Agricultural Union — a group sympathetic to Afrikaner farmers — the total number of farm murders in South Africa between 1990 and 2024 stood at 2,229, which included 1,363 white farmers, 529 relatives of white farmers, 38 white workers, 30 white visitors, 88 Black farmers, 61 relatives of Black farmers, 188 Black workers, and seven Black visitors.

On average, 56 white South Africans were killed on farms per year during the 35-year period, according to this data.

“These crimes are brutal and concerning, but they stem from high levels of violent crime and poor rural policing, not from a state-sponsored or group-led intent to annihilate a racial group,” Kaziboni said.

Trump claims no justice for killers of white farmers

“You do allow them to take the land. And when they take the land, they kill the white farmer. And when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them,” Trump complained to Ramaphosa.

A major topic of contention between the two countries is the recent passing of a land expropriation law by South Africa, which Trump has denounced as “persecution” of the country’s rich white minority.

The law allows the government to seize land from any private owner, white or otherwise, for public purposes and public interests. While the law spells out fair compensation, it also allows for seizure without compensation in certain instances.

However, unlike what Trump claimed, the law makes it clear that only the government – not vigilantes – can take land from farmers.

And Trump is inaccurate in his claims that “nothing happens” to those who carry out farm murders. In November 2022, two men were convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murders of Glenn and Vida Rafferty, the couple whose death sparked the 2020 protest that Trump falsely claimed showed a line of gravesites by the highway.

What about South African politicians chanting ‘Kill the Boer’?

Trump’s team also showed a video of Julius Malema, an opposition figure and leader of the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, singing the anti-apartheid song Dubul’ ibhunu (“Kill the Boer”) at a rally.

“Boer” is the Afrikaans word for farmer, and on one level, it simply means farmer, of any race.

However, the title is indeed often taken to mean “Kill the Afrikaner”. The song emerged during the 1980s, as opposition to more than three decades of apartheid rule spilled onto the streets of South Africa’s townships. The title of the song is often also translated as “Kill the white farmer”.

Ramaphosa told Trump that he has repeatedly condemned Malema and his statements, which do not reflect the official government position.

Meanwhile, Malema has repeatedly stated – both in court and in interviews – that “we are not calling for the slaughter of white people, at least for now”.

Anti-apartheid veterans argue that the lyrics are not an incitement to violence against white people, explaining that Boer symbolises the broader concept of an oppressor.

Courts in South Africa have also ruled that the song does not constitute hate speech.

Kaziboni said that these rulings “have been controversial”.

“Some fear they may leave vulnerable groups without sufficient recourse when threatened,” he said.

However, the University of Johannesburg researcher said, the courts and the South African government appear to be trying to find a balance between “freedom of expression, historical redress, and social cohesion”.

“The courts [have] emphasised the need to understand the song within its historical and political context, not as a literal incitement to violence, but as a symbolic act of resistance embedded in the country’s liberation struggle,” Kaziboni said.

‘Death, death, horrible death’: Trump presents sheaf of articles

Sitting next to Ramaphosa, Trump rifled through a series of articles that he said showed further proof of white farmers’ persecution.

“Death of people, death, death, death, horrible death, death,” Trump said as he showcased the news stories in front of reporters.

However, in the stack of papers was a blog post with an image from the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo showing Red Cross workers in protective gear handling body bags.

Kaziboni said that during a time of “rising global misinformation”, Trump’s framing of South Africa “misrepresents both the facts and the deeper history”.

On May 21, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa stunned the world by announcing that his government had officially granted refugee status to 48 million African Americans. The decision, made through an executive order titled “Addressing the Egregious Actions and Extensive Failures of the US Government”, was unveiled at a news conference held in the tranquil gardens of the Union Buildings in Pretoria.

Poised and deliberate, Ramaphosa framed the announcement as a necessary and humane response to what he called “the absolute mayhem” engulfing the United States. Flanked by Maya Johnson, president of the African American Civil Liberties Association, and her deputy Patrick Miller, Ramaphosa declared that South Africa could no longer ignore the plight of a people “systematically impoverished, criminalised, and decimated by successive US governments”.

Citing a dramatic deterioration in civil liberties under President Donald Trump’s second term, Ramaphosa specifically pointed to the administration’s barrage of executive orders dismantling affirmative action, gutting DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) initiatives, and permitting federal contractors to discriminate freely. These measures, he said, are calculated to “strip African Americans of dignity, rights, and livelihood – and to make America white again”.

“This is not policy,” Ramaphosa said, “this is persecution.”

President Trump’s 2024 campaign was unabashed in its calls to “defend the homeland” from what it framed as internal threats – a barely veiled dog whistle for the reassertion of white political dominance. True to his word, Trump has unleashed what critics are calling a rollback not just of civil rights, but of civilisation itself.

Ramaphosa noted that under the guise of restoring law and order, the federal government has instituted what amounts to an authoritarian crackdown on Black political dissent. Since Trump’s inauguration in January, he said, hundreds of African American activists have been detained by security forces – often on dubious charges – and interrogated under inhumane conditions.

While Ramaphosa focused on systemic oppression, Johnson sounded the alarm on what she bluntly described as “genocide”.

“Black Americans are being hunted,” she told reporters. “Night after night, day after day, African Americans across the country are being attacked by white Americans. These criminals claim they are ‘reclaiming’ America. Police departments, far from intervening, are actively supporting these mobs – providing logistical aid, shielding them from prosecution, and joining in the carnage.”

The African American Civil Liberties Association estimates that in the past six weeks alone, thousands of African Americans have been threatened, assaulted, disappeared, or killed, she said.

The crisis has not gone unnoticed by the remainder of the continent. Last week, the African Union convened an emergency summit to address the deteriorating situation in the US. In a rare unified statement, AU leaders condemned the US government’s actions and tasked President Ramaphosa with raising the issue before the United Nations.

Their mandate? Repatriate African Americans and offer refuge.

Ramaphosa confirmed that the first charter flights carrying refugees will arrive on African soil on May 25 – Africa Day.

“As the sun sets on this dark chapter of American history,” Ramaphosa said, “a new dawn is rising over Africa. We will not remain passive while a genocide unfolds in the United States.”

***

Of course, none of this has happened.

There was no statement on “Egregious Actions and Extensive Failures of the US Government” from South Africa. There was no news conference where an African leader highlighted the plight of his African brothers and sisters in the United States and offered them options.

There will be no refuge flights from Detroit to Pretoria.

Instead, after the US cut off aid to South Africa, repeated false accusations that a “white genocide” is taking place there and began welcoming Afrikaners as refugees, a pragmatic Ramaphosa paid a respectful visit to the White House on May 21.

During his visit, watched closely by the world media, he did not even mention the millions of African Americans facing discrimination, police violence and abuse under a president who is clearly determined to “Make America White Again” – let alone offer them refuge in Africa. Even when Trump insisted, without any basis in reality, that a genocide is being perpetrated against white people in his country, Ramaphosa did not bring up Washington’s long list of – very real, systemic, and seemingly accelerating – crimes against Black Americans.

He tried to remain polite and diplomatic, focusing not on the racist hostility of the American administration but on the important ties between the two nations.

Perhaps, in the real world, it is too much to ask an African leader to risk diplomatic fallout by defending Black lives abroad.

Perhaps it is easier to shake hands with a man who calls imaginary white suffering a “genocide” rather than to call out a real one unfolding on his watch.

In another world, Ramaphosa stood tall in Pretoria and told Trump`: “We will not accept your lies about our country – and we will not stay silent as you brutalise our kin in yours.”

In this one, he stood quietly in Washington – and did.

Two people were killed and tens of thousands of residents were affected by record-breaking floods that occurred in New South Wales. As emergency teams continue their rescue efforts, authorities warn of additional rain and potentially life-threatening flash floods.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli-caused attacks on Gaza since dawn, according to medical sources, as limited humanitarian aid has flowed into the Palestinian territory since Israel lifted its total blockade.

At least 51 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Thursday, according to medical sources, including 25 in Gaza City and northern Strip areas.

According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, an Israeli attack that targeted an area housing displaced people in the al-Baraka neighborhood of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza claimed the lives of at least 10 people, including nine members of the same family.

In the as-Saftawi neighborhood of northwest Gaza, an Israeli bombing that targeted the Bakhit family home killed five people, according to Wafa.

A tank shell struck an Al-Awda Hospital’s medical warehouse in Beit Lahiya, setting it on fire, according to the health ministry, on the northern edge of the enclave.

According to the report, rescuers had spent hours trying to put out the fires.
According to doctors, tanks are stationed outside the hospital, effectively preventing access.

Collecting supplies by aid organizations

The UN reported on Thursday that the attacks occurred as aid organizations collected humanitarian supplies from about 90 trucks that have flown into Gaza since Israel’s restrictions on goods began earlier this week.

The UN Humanitarian Agency, according to Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for OCHA, had food, wheat flour, and medicine in the trucks that entered.

Insecurity, the risk of looting, and coordination issues with Israeli authorities present significant challenges for aid organizations in distributing the aid, Laerke said.

Late on Wednesday, the Gaza Government Media Office announced that international and local organizations had received 87 aid trucks to meet “urgent humanitarian needs.”

According to Tarek Abu Azzoum, who is a correspondent from Deir el-Balah, the food trucks “successfully off-loaded” at designated UN distribution centers on Wednesday.

He claimed that some bakeries have since resumed operations, citing Gaza’s media office.

Abu Azzoum praised the progress, noting that the supplies were still a “trickle” in comparison to the population’s needs in Gaza, where experts warn of a looming famine.

Our correspondent reported that food aid has not yet arrived in the northern region of Gaza because of security concerns, where thousands of civilians are also being under siege.

After more than 80 days of a complete blockade, the UN has been demanding that at least 500 food trucks be allowed into the territory every day. “The question is still whether Israel would allow an unconditional flow of aid to the Gaza Strip,” he said.

In the face of delays caused by concerns about looting and Israeli military restrictions and strikes, the UN announced on Wednesday that it was attempting to provide the desperately needed aid to Palestinians as quickly as possible.

After weeks of almost total isolation, where have Palestinians been frantically searching for basic supplies as a result of Israel’s blockade and fears of a long-term famine?

Half a million people in the Gaza Strip are currently starving, according to the UN, and one in five of those there are also in danger of starvation.

Pope Leo XIV called for “sufficient humanitarian aid” to be flown in and described the situation in Gaza as “worrying and painful.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the announcement in recent days that Israel is still days away from implementing a new aid system in Gaza, which has drawn strong international condemnation.

He claimed that Israel intends to establish a “sterile zone” there that would house Hamas, where the population, which has repeatedly eluded and relocated throughout the conflict, would be moved and receive supplies.

Since Israel resumed its strikes on March 18, according to Gaza’s health ministry, at least 3, 509 people have died. Palestinian health authorities claim that at least 53 out of 655 people have died as a result of Israel’s October 2023 assault.