Fact Check: The truth about farm murders in South Africa
Protesters claim nation’s farmers are three times more likely to be killed than police
Thousands of white farmers took to the streets throughout South Africa last month to protest a spate of deadly attacks in rural communities.
Protesters claim that farmers are much more likely to be murdered than the average South African - and that many of the brutal attacks are racially motivated.
There is a “popular narrative that the country’s white farming minority is under siege”, says the Mail and Guardian.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The high rate of murders on farms has been used by many “as evidence that South Africa’s white minority is facing victimisation, oppression, and possibly genocide”, the newspaper adds.
But what is the real story behind this highly politicised debate?
What do protesters say?
The so-called Black Monday demonstrations, on 30 October, were backed by AfriForum, a controversial lobby group that promotes the rights of South Africa’s Afrikaner population.
The organisation puts the farm murder rate at 156 per 100,000 people – more than four times the national average.
Speaking to protesters in Pretoria last week, the group’s head of community safety, Ian Cameron, also claimed that white farmers are three times more likely to be murdered than police officers in South Africa.
“Farmers have by far the most dangerous job of all people in this country at the moment,” he said. “We cannot allow this to continue the way it is.”
The Freedom Front Plus, a right-wing Afrikaans party, has long argued that farm killings “can justifiably be viewed as genocide” and has accused the police of suppressing official figures that show a “drastic increase” in farm attacks and murders.
What do others say?
The South African Institute of Race Relations says it “does not support the view that a politically inspired genocide of white farmers is under way”. CEO Frans Cronje warns that those who claim otherwise “risk being dismissed as a lunatic fringe” and distracting from “the very real plight” of farmers.
In a 2014 report on farm attacks, the South African Human Rights Commission said it was “concerned” that evidence submitted by AfriForum was “solely focused on farm owners and their families” and ignored the broader farming community, including black employees.
What are the facts?
“To calculate a farm murder rate, you need two numbers: the number of people who were murdered in farm attacks and the number of people who work on, live on or visit farms and smallholdings,” says independent fact-checking organisation Africa Check.
According to the South African Police Service (SAPS), there were 74 farm murders in 2016-17 - up by 28% from the previous year, and the highest number since 2010-11.
However, there is no breakdown by race, and it is unclear whether the victims were farmers, workers, family members or visitors.
What’s more, the police database on farm murders is a “live” system - meaning the statistics derived from it are subject to change if new information on cases emerges, Major-General Sally de Beer, head of communication at SAPS, told Africa Check earlier this year.
Credit: SAPS
These statistics are “broadly in line” with figures collected by the Transvaal Agricultural Union, says BBC News. “But a rise in the number of farm murders doesn’t tell us anything about whether farmers are more at risk than average South African,” the website adds.
Because there are no official figures for the total number of people who work on, live on, or visit farms and smallholding, it is not possible to calculate the murder rate accurately.
It’s also unclear whether white farmers are more at risk than black farmers - or more at risk than the population at large, BBC News reports, because “we simply don’t know what proportion of people on South Africa’s farms is white”.
So who’s right?
The number of farm murders has increased in recent years, but there are no reliable statistics to back up claims that white farmers are more likely to be killed than either black farmers or the general population.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
'Make legal immigration a more plausible option'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
LA-to-Las Vegas high-speed rail line breaks ground
Speed Read The railway will be ready as soon as 2028
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Israel's military intelligence chief resigns
Speed Read Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva is the first leader to quit for failing to prevent the Hamas attack in October
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
Sydney mall attacker may have targeted women
Speed Read Police commissioner says gender of victims is 'area of interest' to investigators
By Julia O'Driscoll, The Week UK Published
-
Why are kidnappings in Nigeria on the rise again?
Today's Big Question Hundreds of children and displaced people are missing as kidnap-for-ransom 'bandits' return
By Julia O'Driscoll, The Week UK Published
-
Deaths of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies hang over Sydney's Mardi Gras
The Explainer Police officer, the former partner of TV presenter victim, charged with two counts of murder after turning himself in
By Austin Chen, The Week UK Published
-
How the idyllic Galapagos Islands became staging post in world drug trade
Under the radar Ecuador's crackdown on gang violence forces drug traffickers into Pacific routes to meet cocaine demand
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Armed gangs, prison breaks and on-air hostages: how Ecuador was plunged into crisis
The Explainer Gangs launch deadly revenge after president declares state of emergency following escape of feared drug boss from prison
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Ecuador tips toward chaos amid prison breaks, armed TV takeover
Speed Read New President Daniel Noboa authorized the military to 'neutralize' powerful drug-linked gangs after they unleashed violence and terror across Ecuador
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Prague shooting: student kills 14 people at university
Speed reads Police believe suspect, who killed himself, may have shot his father before carrying out mass murder
By Arion McNicoll, The Week UK Published
-
Ex-US diplomat confessed spying for Cuba to undercover agent, FBI says
Speed Read DOJ says former US ambassador Manuel Rocha perpetrated 'one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent'
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published