‘No proof of persecution’ says Ronald Lamola as 49 Afrikaner ‘refugees’ jet off for US

International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola has dismissed the claims that white Afrikaners are being persecuted in South Africa and qualify as refugees. 

“They can’t provide any proof of any persecution because there’s none. There’s not any form of persecution to white South Africans or to Afrikaner South Africans,” Lamola said at a press conference on South Africa’s G20 presidency, on Monday, 12 May 2025.

A charter plane carrying 49 Afrikaners who have been granted refugee status by the US departed OR Tambo International Airport on Sunday night, 11 May, according to a Reuters report. The publication reported that the group was due to travel to Washington Dulles International Airport, in Virginia, and then to Texas. 

The group’s departure follows a report by The New York Times last Friday, that the Trump administration was planning to bring the first group of white South Africans it had classified as refugees to the US as early as this week.

The Trump administration planned to send US government officials to Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia for an event marking the arrival of the Afrikaners to the US on Monday, according to the report. 

Read more: Pretoria challenges Trump’s plans to resettle Afrikaners as refugees

In a statement issued on Friday, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation challenged the US’ assertion that Afrikaners qualified for refugee status, saying that the allegations of discrimination against the group were “unfounded”. It added that it was “not clear how the principle of non-refoulement will be applied in relation to these citizens once they are resettled”. 

“From the perspective of the South African government, in terms of the executive order that has defined the South Africans as refugees, we have stated in the statement we issued on Friday, that in line with the international definition they do not qualify for that status, according to us, and there is no persecution of white Afrikaner South Africans in South Africa,” Lamola said on Monday. 

He said statistics released by the South African Police Service (SAPS) “do not back that assertion of persecution of white South Africans on the basis of their race”.

“The crime that we have in South Africa affects everyone — irrespective of race and irrespective of gender. There is a more pronounced crime that we are dealing with, which the president has declared as a pandemic, which is the crime [of] gender-based violence,” he said. 

Responding to a question from a reporter about whether the Afrikaners would be allowed to return to South Africa, Lamola said the government was still considering the issue. 

“At this stage, I think that will be an issue obviously for us [the Department of International Relations and Cooperation] and Home Affairs to deal with. We have not yet applied it. We did mention it in the statement.

International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola. (Photo: Gallo Images / Frennie Shivambu)

“But it’s South Africans who have made their own choice in terms of their rights to go to any other country, and in this regard to the United States of America. So at this stage the South African government will apply its mind in regards to that matter,” said Lamola. 

In an executive order signed in February this year, Trump ordered that his administration promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping “government-sponsored, race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation”.

In the order, titled “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa”, Trump accused the South African government of, under the Expropriation Act, seizing “ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation”, a claim Pretoria has repeatedly denied.  

‘Appropriate steps’

He authorised US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to take “appropriate steps… to prioritise humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program, for Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination”. 

Within weeks of the announcement, the Trump administration set up a programme called “Mission South Africa” and deployed teams to Pretoria to vet white South Africans for consideration, according to a report by The New York Times. Of more than 8,000 requests from people who were interested in becoming refugees studied by the teams, the US government identified 100 Afrikaners who potentially could be approved, the report added. 

In its statement on Friday, Dirco said it had sought the status of people who would be departing, whether as asylum seekers, refugees or ordinary citizens; and assurances that they had been appropriately vetted by competent South African authorities to ensure that they did not have any outstanding criminal cases against them. 

In response to questions from reporters on the vetting process, Lamola said on Monday: “There has been a process that involved the South African Police Service with regards to the South Africans who have left — checking all their criminal records and all the necessary procedures that they had to undergo.”

When asked what the US’ response has been when South Africa has informed them that there’s no persecution of white farmers happening in the country, Lamola said: “They say that they have got an executive order that they have to implement, and that according to them, there is persecution.” DM

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