Allegations of a “white genocide” in South Africa have risen to international prominence since US President Donald Trump became a conduit for them. Having terminated all other refugee programmes, the Trump administration very publicly welcomed an initial group of “Afrikaner refugees” to the United States on 12 May 2025. Soon thereafter, President Trump met with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and his delegation in the Oval Office.

Mr Trump was quickly criticised for making unfounded claims about the maltreatment of “whites” in South Africa. However, while there is currently no genocide of “white” South Africans, and most “white” South Africans do not yet qualify as refugees, the situation of South African “whites” is worse than Mr Trump’s critics acknowledge.

The word “genocide” is notoriously vague. For example, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”