South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world, affecting every ethnic group and every region in the country. However, in recent years, farm attacks, often resulting in murder, have come to the world’s attention, becoming a politically volatile problem for the rainbow nation. The Trump administration has declared that these attacks have become targeted, and so brutal, that the victims’ plight is the same as those fleeing war, and so granted Afrikaaners refugee status.
But what’s really going on? Are farm attacks a uniquely racially charged crime in a country struggling with daily violence on its streets? Are unscrupulous politicians ignoring them, or even encouraging them?
James Glancy travelled to South Africa to speak to the victims of farm attacks, to see the devastation this brutal violence is wrecking on farming in South Africa, and what effect it has on those left behind.
