South Africa’s new ambassador to the United States, Roelf Meyer, has rejected claims that white Afrikaners face genocide, as Washington continues a refugee programme for the group.
Meyer, who is himself an Afrikaner and helped negotiate the end of apartheid, told the BBC that the claim misrepresents the nature of violence in South Africa. He said he would like to discuss the issue directly with U.S. President Donald Trump.
His intervention comes as the Trump administration prepares to admit up to 17,500 additional white Afrikaners as refugees over the next 12 months.
Nearly 13,000 refugees have already been admitted to the U.S. since the programme began, with all but three coming from South Africa, the data said.
Meyer challenges genocide claim
Meyer said he questioned the claim when he first heard Trump speak about an alleged genocide against white Afrikaners.
The ambassador said the idea of a mass attack against the white Afrikaner minority did not exist. He said his background as an Afrikaner gave him the legitimacy to speak on the subject.
“I’m an Afrikaner from South Africa myself,” Meyer said, adding, “and I can say that I’ve never experienced something of that kind.”
He also said facts about violence in South Africa had been misrepresented and that he had never received a clear explanation of where the “misdirection of information” came from.
Meyer was appointed ambassador to the U.S. in April after relations between Washington and Pretoria deteriorated.
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He helped negotiate the end of apartheid on behalf of the National Party, which governed South Africa under white-minority rule. Cyril Ramaphosa was also a major negotiator for the African National Congress during that period.
Meyer said Ramaphosa appointed him partly because of the trust between them and because the president valued his Afrikaner background.
“But I’m not here to represent the Afrikaner only,” he said.
Refugee programme continues
Trump accused South Africa of white genocide during a meeting with Ramaphosa at the White House last year. His administration later created a refugee pathway for Afrikaners.
The US administration now plans to admit another 17,500 white Afrikaners within 12 months, based on a notice sent to Congress on Tuesday.
The White House defended the policy in comments to the BBC.
“President Trump has provided a lifeline for Afrikaners, who are being raped, maimed, killed and driven off their property across South Africa,” a White House spokeswoman said.
The administration said it would continue processing refugee applications because of what it called the humanitarian needs of the group.
Implications
The disagreement has affected US-South Africa relations.
Last week, the Trump administration announced visa restrictions on South Africans it accused of responsibility for “race-based discrimination” against white people.
Washington also warned of further punitive action if South African leaders did not address the issue.
South African police data, however, shows that most crime victims in the country, including victims of farm crime, are black.
Official figures for the fourth quarter of the 2024/25 financial year recorded six murders in farming communities. Two victims were farm owners, two were farm employees, one was a farm manager and one was a farm dweller.
The South African government has said the figures do not show a racial pattern in rural killings. It has also said crime affects people across racial groups.
Crime on farms is still a serious issue. But the South African government and other sources cited in the data distinguish criminal violence from a campaign of genocide.
Meyer acknowledged the country’s serious crime problem but rejected the idea that it mainly affects white farmers.
“South Africa has challenges with the prevention of crime and with the combatting of crime,” he said.
He added that crime affected the country as a whole, pointing to high levels of crime in black townships.
What readers should know
The refugee programme has also attracted criticism from some Afrikaners in South Africa.
SJ Du Venage, a council member of the Freedom Front Plus, is trying to move to the U.S. through the programme. As reported by the BBC, he maintained that there was a “political drive towards killing white people, and killing the farmers on the farms”.
“There’s absolutely an agenda to wipe us out here,” he said.
An Afrikaner lobby group is also organising a vigil at Washington’s National Mall with thousands of white crosses. The group says the crosses commemorate victims of farm attacks.
But the genocide claim has been rejected by political parties in South Africa, including parties that represent Afrikaners.
The dispute also covers land policy and employment rules. The Trump administration has raised concerns about measures designed to address historic racial inequality, including employment targets for non-white workers and a law allowing land expropriation without compensation in exceptional circumstances.
Meyer wants Trump’s executive order underpinning the refugee pathway revoked. He said South Africa had not stopped anyone from leaving the country and had addressed U.S. concerns. He also said the land expropriation law was awaiting a court judgment.
Meyer wants the U.S. to help South Africa fight crime through resources and equipment that could improve police response times.
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