Marie von Tonder still remembers the night in 2002 when armed men stormed her Limpopo farm, leaving her family shaken but alive – www.naijnaira.com reports.
She says the memory never left her, and the rows of white crosses at the Witkrius Monument remind her of farmers killed since 1994.
Channel 4 News notes that South African courts have rejected the “white genocide” idea, with statistics showing farm killings make up just 0.2% of all homicides.
Donald Trump, however, used his Oval Office meeting with Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this year to accuse the government of targeting white farmers for their land.
Marie’s son Gideon welcomed Trump’s comments, saying, “What Donald Trump is doing is going to force us to look internally – and to see that we don’t have the right people running the country.”
In Black townships, community leaders accuse Trump of inflaming racial tensions, pointing out that most of South Africa’s 64 daily murder victims are poor Black citizens.
Romeo Mogale was blunt: “If ten Black people die and one white person dies and you only make noise about the white person, then it’s a problem.”
Despite Trump’s claims, studies show most farm attacks are robberies linked to poverty, inequality, and the legacy of Apartheid.
Some white farmers argue crime was lower during Apartheid, a sentiment critics say fuels nostalgia for an oppressive past.
Meanwhile, Black families like Jeritha Makinta’s continue to fight for land taken generations ago, frustrated at ANC promises that never materialized.
Ramaphosa has pushed back against Trump’s narrative, insisting that South Africa’s problems must be solved domestically, not defined by foreign leaders.
Even with asylum offered by the U.S., Marie says she has no plans to leave, adding, “I really don’t want to go and live in any other country than South Africa.”
Article updated 1 month ago. Content is written and modified by multiple authors.
