FARM MURDERS IS 'FAKE NEWS'

THE Presidency rubbished a US State Department report that attacks on farms were not ordinary crimes as a murder trial kicked off in Polokwane on Monday. 

The US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor’s (DRL) are pushing claims made by American president Donald Trump of white farmers being targeted in violent crime and white genocide in South Africa. 

The findings lack credibility, says presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya who also accused Trump’s administration of ignoring reliable information in order to sustain a disinformation campaign against South Africa.

The bureau said local ‘sources’ reported 296 farm attacks and 49 murders in 2023, adding that victims were disproportionately elderly, isolated and faced delayed police response.

It said the SAPS also reported that the number increased to 44 murders in 2024.

This comes as the Limpopo High Court heard a case of a white farmer who is accused of killing two black women and feeding them to his varke. 

Three men are on trial for the murders of Maria Makgato, 45, and Lucia Ndlovu, 34, last October. 

Makgato and Ndlovu were killed while allegedly looking for food on a farm near Polokwane. 

One of the accused, farm worker Rudolph de Wet, told the court that plaasbaas Zachariah Johannes Olivier shot and killed the two women.

De Wet is expected to testify that he and co-worker William Musora were under duress when they were forced to dispose of the bodies by throwing them into the varkhok.

Ndlovu's husband Mabutho Ncube who had entered Onvervaght farm to collect expired goods dumped by a commercial truck. The two women died on the farm while Ncube managed to escape.

He said at the time: “The first shot was fired into the air. The second bullet hit me, third bullet hit the other woman who was with us [Makgato] and the fourth bullet hit my wife. 

“I went down, and after a while, I went to check on my wife to see if she was alive.”

The trial was postponed to next week.