Fact Check: Trump's South Africa 'white genocide' claim proven false

US President Donald Trump has come under scrutiny after making false claims during a meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, alleging that white farmers in South Africa are being systematically murdered.

Trump made the remarks on May 21 during Ramaphosa's visit to the White House, referring to a video that he claimed showed the gravesites of over a thousand white farmers.

“These are the -- these are burial sites right here,” Trump said while describing the footage. “Each one of those white things you see is a cross. And there are approximately a thousand of them. They're all white farmers, the family of white farmers,” he added.

However, a fact check by The Eastleigh Voice has shown that these claims are false.

The footage Trump referred to had been circulating on social media before Ramaphosa’s visit, with a post on May 12 stating that each cross represented a murdered white farmer in South Africa. That video had nearly 55 million views at the time.

A reverse image search revealed that the video footage Trump showed was not new and had previously appeared in 2020 and 2023.

The image with white crosses is not from South Africa and does not represent the graves of murdered white farmers.

In fact, the image showing graves was taken from a Reuters report about women killed in Goma, a city in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in February this year.

During the meeting, Trump also showed footage of South African politician Julius Malema chanting “kill the boer, kill the farmer” at a stadium rally.

The footage was from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) 10th anniversary event held at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg in August 2023. Public broadcaster SABC and other media covered the event.

Julius Malema, who was previously a member of the ruling African National Congress before being expelled in 2012, has used the song as a political slogan.

The chant has roots in the apartheid era and has been classified as hate speech several times in South Africa.

Despite its use in political rallies, the song does not reflect official government policy.

Ramaphosa made that clear after the video was shown, saying that those statements are not the policy of his government.

Trump’s remarks also included statements about refugees: “So we take [refugees] from many locations if we feel persecution or genocide is going on,” he said.

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“And we had a lot of people, I must tell you, Mr President [Ramaphosa], we have had a tremendous number of people, especially since they’ve seen this – generally they’re white farmers, and they’re fleeing South Africa.”

Trump said 59 white South Africans had recently arrived in the US through a refugee programme created for them. However, claims that white South Africans are being targeted or persecuted are not supported by data.

The South African government does not provide murder statistics by race. But according to crime data from April to December 2024, there were 19,696 murders in the country during that period.

Only 36 of those were connected to farms, and only seven victims were identified as farmers. The remaining 29 victims were farm workers, most of whom are Black.

There is no credible evidence that white farmers in South Africa are being targeted as part of any organised campaign.