South Africa Rejects Trump’s Claims of White Genocide as Crime Stats Show Otherwise

South Africa’s police minister says new crime numbers prove there is no genocide against white people in the country.

This comes after US President Donald Trump claimed white farmers were being killed and treated unfairly. He said this during a live meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday.

But on Friday, Police Minister Senzo Mchunu said the facts do not support Trump’s claim. From January to March, six people were killed on farms. Five were black and one was white. The white person lived on a farm. The black victims were two owners, two workers, and a manager.

In the three months before that, 12 people were killed on farms. Only one of them was white.

This is the first time South Africa has shared farm murder data by race. Mchunu said he did it because of the false genocide claims.

He said the story of farm murders has often been told in a misleading way.

In February, a judge also said the idea of a white genocide was "clearly imagined" and "not real" during a court case.

Claims of genocide have been pushed by right-wing groups in the US for years.

President Ramaphosa went to the White House to try and fix relations with the US. Trump had earlier given asylum to about 60 Afrikaners, who are white South Africans with mostly Dutch roots. He said they were treated unfairly because of their race.

During their meeting, Trump showed Ramaphosa videos and pictures that he said proved a white genocide. But the BBC found that this "evidence" was false.

Minister Mchunu responded: “We respect the US and its people. But we do not respect the genocide story. It is not true.”

A UN Human Rights Office spokesperson also criticized Trump’s comments. Ravina Shamdasani said, “Genocide is a serious word. You should not use it unless you fully understand what it means. It is not right to use it in South Africa’s case.”

South Africa has high crime levels, and Mchunu admitted this. But he said everyone in the country is affected, not just white people.

He also said Trump was wrong to say the government was taking land from white farmers. A new land law was signed, but no land has been taken yet.

The new law allows land to be taken without payment in some cases. It aims to fix land ownership in a country where white people still own most land, even decades after apartheid ended.

Since Trump became US president, relations with South Africa have worsened. He has cut aid, kicked out the South African ambassador, and given asylum to white South Africans.