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The U.S. State Department found that the human rights situation in South Africa has “significantly worsened” over the past year, citing reports of “extrajudicial killings” and repression against racial minorities.
The State Department conducts an annual review of the human rights situations in countries across the globe, and it targeted South Africa with new criticism in the 2025 report released Tuesday. The report, scheduled to be sent to Congress on Tuesday, pointed to the U.S. receiving several reports of the South African “government or its agents” carrying out extrajudicial or arbitrary killings, as well as repression of Afrikaner minorities.
“In July the provincial police commissioner confirmed that as of April, police shot and killed at least 40 criminal suspects in shoot-outs. On September 2, police reported six suspects wanted for homicide and extortion were shot and killed by Durban police in a shoot-out. According to Reuters, eight of the police officers involved were placed on administrative leave with full pay pending investigation,” the report said.
“Watchdog groups noted deaths in custody often resulted from physical abuse combined with a lack of subsequent medical treatment or neglect,” it continued.
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“According to data compiled by Agence France-Presse, there were 447 murders on farms and smallholdings between October 2023 and September 2024. In recent years, extremist political party the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) encouraged attacks on Afrikaner farmers, reviving the use of the song “Kill the Boer [Farmer]” at its rallies and otherwise inciting violence,” the report added.
The State Department went on to criticize wider repression tactics against Afrikaners, citing The Expropriation Bill of 2024, in particular. The legislation allows the government to seize land without compensation in some circumstances.
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“This act could enable the government to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation, following countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and extreme rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners,” the report said.
President Donald Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House during a state visit in May.
Trump has claimed that White Afrikaner South African farmers are being slaughtered and forced off their land. The Afrikaners are descendants of mostly Dutch settlers who first arrived in South Africa in 1652.
“Now this is very bad. These are burial sites right here. Burial sites — over a thousand — of White farmers. And those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning. Each one of those white things you see is a cross. And there is approximately a thousand of them,” Trump said at the time. “They’re all White farmers. The family of White farmers. And those cars aren’t, driving, they are stopped there to pay respects to their family member who was killed. And it’s a terrible sight. I’ve never seen anything like it. On both sides of the road, you have crosses. Those people are all killed.”
South Africa denies claims of genocide and harassment, as does its president.
“I’m not going to be repeating what I’ve been saying,” Ramaphosa said at the May visit. “I would say if there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you these three gentlemen would not be here, including my Minister of Agriculture. He would not be with me.”
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