Africa-Press – South-Africa. Before losing consciousness, the wife of a Grootvlei farmer was able to identify two of the four attackers who slit her husband’s throat after beating him with an iron bar.
Theo and Marlinda Bekker were attacked on Sunday morning in the Balfour region of Mpumalanga.
The attackers were apprehended later in the day after they crashed the car they had stolen in Villiers in the Free State.
Mpumalanga police spokesperson Brigadier Selvy Mohlala said the attack happened after Theo Bakker went to open a gate on the farm around 08:30 to allow his cattle to graze.
“The suspects forced him back home and tied him and his wife up. His wife was locked up in the bathroom, and [the suspects] took [an undisclosed amount] of firearms from the safe.
“They took the vehicle and left. Later, they were involved in an accident, and four suspects were arrested.”
Mohlala said the suspects faced charges of assault, murder and theft.
Theo de Jager, the chairperson of the Southern African Agri Initiative (Saai), described the attack as “horrendous”.
Saai is an agricultural interest network for the protection of farmers’ rights.
De Jager said:
He said the area was a hot spot for crime because of urbanisation.
De Jager added that, on farms in deep rural areas, people experiencing poverty could work and often take a surplus home, so they may be poor but not hungry. In urban areas, however, especially on farms in Gauteng, the poor were often unable to get surplus food from farms, so they were poor and hungry.
He said this had an effect on crime levels.
De Jager said there had been a country-wide spike in farm murders over the last month, and at one period, there had been eight murders in five days.
“Over the last 20 years, on average, there has been one farm attack every two days and a farm murder every five days. On average, there are 72 farm murders and 185 attacks every year,” he said.
‘Last year, there were six murders of black farmers’
According to the latest crime statistics, as of the fourth quarter of 2022/23, from January to March this year, there had been 77 murders, 62 attempted murders, and 317 cases of assault GBH on either agricultural land, farms, plots, or small holdings.
A national farmers’ conference will be held in September to examine how farmers can improve their security.
De Jager said the conference would look at ways to coordinate security so that farm security organisations, police, and farmers could respond quickly to an emergency.
“The problem is the narrative on social media. When you post about farm murders, people often say: ‘What about the number of people murdered on the Cape Flats’.
“I agree, there are more murders because of gang violence, but the difference is that people aren’t calling for their murder. There’s no song saying, ‘Shoot the [people on the Cape Flats]’.”
De Jager was referencing the “Kill the boer” chant by the EFF.
“There are many murders of people in the deep rural villages, but it’s not accompanied by torture. And afterwards, people aren’t applauding the murder on social media,” he said.
“Some of the most brutal scenes involve farmers who are not white. There was a brutal murder of an Indian woman farmer – she was pregnant. Last year, there were six murders of black farmers, and this year the targets seem to be farm workers or livestock herders.”
For More News And Analysis About South-Africa Follow Africa-Press
