Trump’s ‘burial web site’ declare debunked by South African farming victims’ son : NPR

[ad_1] <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/8075x5386+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F06%2F76%2F828a63624520875a206949c77c2d%2Fgettyimages-2215661734.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/8075x5386+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F06%2F76%2F828a63624520875a206949c77c2d%2Fgettyimages-2215661734.jpg" class="img" alt="US President Donald Trump, right, and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa's president, second right, as a video plays during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, May 21, 2025. " fetchpriority="high"/> US President Donald Trump, proper, and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa's president, second proper, as a video performs throughout a gathering within the Oval Workplace of the White Home in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Could 21, 2025. Bloomberg/Getty photographs cover caption

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Bloomberg/Getty photographs JOHANNESBURG — President Trump claims a "genocide" of white individuals, significantly Afrikaner farmers, is going down in South Africa.

When he met the nation's president, Cyril Ramaphosa, within the Oval Workplace on Wednesday, Trump performed him a video — beforehand shared not less than twice on social media by his advisor Elon Musk — that he mentioned was proof of this.

"Now that is very unhealthy, these are burial websites proper there. Burial websites. Over a thousand. Of white farmers," Trump mentioned, "I've by no means seen something prefer it."

The video confirmed a highway lined on both aspect with scores of white crosses and a procession of automobiles carrying mourners paying their respects.

A startled Ramaphosa requested Trump the place the situation was, saying he'd by no means seen the video earlier than. South Africa, replied Trump.

It was certainly a video taken in South Africa, in KwaZulu-Natal province.

However, it was not a burial web site.

"My mother and father Glen and Vida Rafferty had been murdered, or gunned down, by six males on their farm in 2020, so these crosses had been erected as a memorial on the day of their funeral," Nathan Rafferty advised NPR.

Rafferty, a white South African who now lives in Brisbane, Australia, defined the "area people used it as a method of protest and to pay tribute."

Opposite to Trump's claims, no our bodies had been ever buried alongside that highway and the white crosses do not mark graves.

Requested on Thursday if the president received it flawed, White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt gave this clarification.

"What's unsubstantiated concerning the video? The video reveals crosses that characterize the useless our bodies of people that had been racially persecuted by their authorities," she mentioned.

The crosses did not characterize a particular variety of farm homicide victims, they had been a symbolic tribute to the murdered couple.

Throughout the assembly, Trump additionally held up a printout of a weblog publish exhibiting a photograph taken by Reuters , from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, mistakenly claiming it was taken in South Africa.

Rafferty mentioned he was shocked when he noticed the video proven within the Oval Workplace assembly.

"The very last thing you count on to see are a few of the most traumatic elements of your life proven on worldwide TV. So it was completely surprising," he mentioned.

"It clearly opened a number of new wounds."

The assailants had been planning to rob his mother and father, in line with information experiences on the time. Although they'd aimed to get into the secure, in the long run, they solely stole a automobile and some objects of little worth.

Whereas many murders in South Africa stay unsolved, three of the Rafferty's murderers had been tried and two of them had been sentenced to life imprisonment.

NPR requested Rafferty what he thought concerning the white "genocide" suggestion from the Trump administration.

"Do I believe that there is a focused genocide program of some type?" he mentioned. "No I do not."

Nonetheless, Rafferty mentioned he thinks rather more must be finished to forestall and condemn what are generally brutal assaults.

"I by no means went farming as a result of I used to be frightened of the tinderbox that it's, regardless of having 4 generations of farmers in my household," he added.

South Africa's authorities does not deny the nation suffers a few of the highest crime charges on the planet. Members of Ramaphosa's delegation to Washington had been frank about this being an enormous drawback.

On Friday, South Africa launched its quarterly crime statistics. These should not normally damaged down by race, however given Trump's assaults, police mentioned they had been making an exception.

From January to March 2025, six individuals had been killed on farms in South Africa, police mentioned.

Out of these six, one was white.

"The historical past of farm murders within the nation has all the time been distorted and reported in an unbalanced method; the reality is that farm murders have all the time included African individuals in additional numbers," mentioned Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, referring to Black Africans.

Mchunu additionally spoke concerning the Rafferty case, throughout which the couple "had been sadly murdered by criminals of their residence."

"The incident sparked a really sturdy protest by the farming neighborhood within the space. The crosses symbolized killings on farms over years, they don't seem to be graves," Mchunu mentioned.

"And it was unlucky that these details received twisted to suit a false narrative about crime in South Africa."

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Trump’s ‘burial web site’ declare debunked by South African farming victims’ son : NPR

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