Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu has strongly denounced the circulating narrative of a so-called “white genocide” in South Africa, calling it a “totally unfounded and unsubstantiated” misrepresentation of the country’s crime situation.

His comments came during the release of the fourth quarter crime statistics for the 2024/2025 financial year at the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) offices on Thursday.

“In the last few days, we have seen conversations and concerns about crime in SA taking a totally different turn,” Mchunu said.

“The term ‘genocide’ got forcefully introduced to the scene, in a distinctly foreign and strange manner. It is claimed that there is ‘white genocide’ in South Africa, and as evidence, a lot of material has been put into circulation, including in the White House, in the USA.”

Mchunu dismissed widely circulated images, such as those of crosses planted along a dirt road between Newcastle and Normandien in KwaZulu-Natal, which have been used to suggest systematic targeting of white farmers. He explained that the incident in question was a protest following the 2020 murder of Mr. and Mrs. Rafferty on their Hanover farm, for which suspects were arrested, tried, and sentenced.

“These crosses symbolised killings on farms over years—they are not graves,” he clarified. “This debunks the claim that nothing gets done when crime is committed.”

The Minister expressed concern that such narratives not only distort the facts but are also racially divisive and undermine public confidence in the justice system. “We have respect for the USA as a country, we have respect for the people in that country and for President Trump, but we have no respect for this genocide story—at all,” he said.

Crime, he emphasised, cuts across all racial and geographic divides. “In principle, we do not categorise people by race,” Mchunu said, “but in the context of claims of ‘genocide of White people’, we need to unpack the killings in this category.”

According to the fourth quarter statistics, six farm attacks were recorded between January and March 2025. Of the victims, five were African and one was white.

“The two farm owners that were murdered during the fourth quarter were African and not White,” Mchunu stated. “Further to that, the two farm employees and one farm manager were also African—it is the one farm dweller that was White.”

He also addressed concerns about land-related tensions, firmly rejecting claims of land grabbing.

“We do have cases of land invasions and the two are very different. Land invasions are not government policy, but are by and large, acts of desperation for land by African people who find themselves landless and in need to settle,” he said.

Mchunu reiterated the government’s commitment to transparency, justice, and public safety. “Every crime that is reported in South Africa is recorded and accounted for by the South African Police Service—whether it occurs in an urban area or in the most remote and rural areas.”

The Minister called on the media and the public to be vigilant against misinformation. “Old or recycled news stories are often circulated to create panic,” he warned. “These outdated reports can give the false impression that crime is spiralling out of control, when in fact they do not reflect the current reality.”

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