Latest news with #Mchunu
The Citizen
7 days ago
- The Citizen
Crime stats: Carjacking spikes 80% in Mamelodi
The fourth quarter crime statistics released by the police minister indicate that Mamelodi East police station is ranked in position 2 for carjacking on May 23. Minister Senzo Mchunu announced the country's crime numbers for the fourth quarter of 2024/25, from January to March. Carjacking cases reported to Mamelodi East police increased by 29 this quarter, but declined by five for Mamelodi West police. Property-related crime in Mamelodi East remains a serious concern, as the number of reported cases increased by 27, but there was a decrease of 27 in the number reported to Mamelodi West police. Crimes detected as a result of police action increased by 32% in Mamelodi East. The stats revealed that driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs increased by 20 cases and by 13 in Mamelodi West. The good news is rape crimes in Mamelodi East, which were a serious concern, have decreased by 14, but increased by seven in Mamelodi West. Property-related crime is very alarming in Mamelodi East, with a 24.5 % increase, while Mamelodi West reported a 27% decrease. Mchunu said the crime statistics are based on crimes that are reported, and 'we see a decline in various categories'. 'We note that there is more crime in terms of daily lived experience and a feeling of vulnerability.' He said it is for this reason that they are adjusting their methods of fighting crime and adapting to the new trends and threats out there. Turning to the fourth quarter statistics, Mchunu said, as with previous quarters, they are seeing significant decreases in most crime categories when compared to the same period in the preceding year (1 January to 31 March 2024). 'While we have not yet reached our ultimate goals, these figures confirm that we are indeed making significant progress.' The National Policing Policy aims to, among others, strengthen police service delivery to communities by ensuring professionalism and efficiencies in policing. It is supported by the Integrated Crime and Violence Prevention Strategy, which seeks to address crime and violence at its root cause. He said currently, there are 5 500 trainees at the various SAPS Academies; passing out parades will be in August and November. Mchunu urged the public to exercise caution when consuming and sharing information, especially on social media platforms, where old or recycled news stories are often circulated to create panic. 'These outdated reports can give the false impression that crime is spiralling out of control, when in fact they do not reflect the current reality,' he said. He concluded that for accurate and timely updates on incidents, rely on official SAPS communication channels. 'We remain committed to keeping communities informed and safe at all times.' Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to bennittb@ or phone us on 083 625 4114. For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord's websites: Rekord East For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram or TikTok. At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
IOL News
25-05-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
Police Minister Mchunu clarifies rural safety strategy while addressing crime statistics
Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu said on Friday that there is no genocide against white farmers Image: GCIS Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu on Friday firmly rejected claims of a genocide against white farmers in South Africa. This comes as crime statistics from the fourth quarter of the 2024/2025 financial year, covering the period from 1 January 2025 to 31 March 2025, indicated six farm-related attacks with attacks not being on race. Mchunu said that the National Rural Safety Strategy was designed to create a safe and secure environment in rural areas. 'In the fourth quarter, six attacks on rural communities were recorded. We do not categorise people by race, but in the context of claims of 'genocide of White people', we need to unpack the killings in this category. 'The two farm owners that were murdered during the fourth quarter were African and not White. Further to that, the two farm employees and one farm manager were also African – it is the one farm dweller that was White. 'The history of farm murders in the country has always been distorted and reported in an unbalanced way; the truth is that farm murders have always included African people in more numbers.' Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Mchunu added that the government wanted to reject the notion of 'land grabbing' in the country. Instead, he confirmed that there were cases of land invasions, but said the two were very different. 'Land invasions are not government policy, but are by and large, acts of desperation for land by African people who find themselves landless and in need to settle. It is sporadic and it remains unlawful,' he said. Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist at Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz), said that the South African farming sector or farming community was not under siege. 'The country has devastating crime incidents, which should remain a major worry for all,' he said. 'However, it is necessary to state that there is no land expropriation without compensation in the country, that the recent Expropriation Act has been massively misrepresented, and that property rights remain intact. Land Reform is still under the market principles of the willing buyer-willing seller.' Jaco Minnaar, president of Agri SA, said it was good that Mchunu reverted to the National Rural Safety Strategy, which was developed with farmers. 'The problem is the implementation, which is not currently on track, as well as the lack of necessary resources allocated to it,' he said. 'AgriSA and other role players are in the process to address this with the minister and SAPS, and hope with the spotlight now on it, we will make progress. We are glad that our government realised it as a big concern, together with crime as a whole in SA, and we will assist as far as possible to help address the issue.' Francois Rossouw, CEO of Southern African Agri Initiative (Saai), welcomed Mchunu's recognition of farm attacks in the official crime statistics. 'However, the figure of only six attacks for the quarter must be viewed with caution. Many rural crimes go unreported, under-recorded, or misclassified due to inconsistent definitions and weak rural policing infrastructure,' he said. 'We take note of the Minister's distinction between land invasions and land grabs, but in practice, the line between the two is increasingly blurred. The lack of consequences for illegal land occupations and weak enforcement emboldens those who target farms. That alone undermines confidence in the government's commitment to the rule of law in rural areas.' Visit:
Arab Times
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Arab Times
Trump ‘twisted' facts to push baseless genocide claims: S.Africa police minister
JOHANNESBURG, May 24, (AP): South Africa's top law enforcement official said Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump wrongly claimed that a video he showed in the Oval Office was of burial sites for more than 1,000 white farmers and he "twisted' the facts to push a false narrative about mass killings of white people in his country. Police Minister Senzo Mchunu was talking about a video clip that was played during the meeting between Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House on Wednesday that showed an aerial view of a rural road with lines of white crosses erected on either side. "Now this is very bad,' Trump said as he referred to the clip that was part of a longer video that was played in the meeting. "These are burial sites, right here. Burial sites, over a thousand, of white farmers, and those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning." Mchunu said the crosses did not mark graves or burial sites, but were a temporary memorial put up in 2020 to protest the killings of all farmers across South Africa. They were put up during a funeral procession for a white couple who were killed in a robbery on their farm, Mchunu said. A son of the couple who were killed and a local community member who took part in the procession also said the crosses do not represent burial sites and were taken down after the protest. South Africa struggles with extremely high levels of violent crime, although farm killings make up a small percentage of the country's overall homicides. Both white and Black farmers are attacked, and sometimes killed, and the government has condemned the violence against both groups. Whites make up around 7% of South Africa's 62 million people but generally still have a much better standard of living than the Black majority more than 30 years after the end of the apartheid system of racial segregation. Whites make up the majority of the country's wealthier commercial farmers. Mchunu said Trump's false claims that the crosses represented more than 1,000 burial sites was part of his "genocide story' - referring to the US president's baseless allegations in recent weeks that there is a widespread campaign in South Africa to kill white farmers and take their land that he has said amounts to a genocide. "They are not graves. They don't represent graves,' Mchunu said regarding the video that has become prominent on social media since it was shown in the White House. "And it was unfortunate that those facts got twisted to fit a false narrative about crime in South Africa.'
1News
24-05-2025
- Politics
- 1News
Trump 'twisted' facts over genocide claims
South Africa's top law enforcement official said that US President Donald Trump wrongly claimed that a video he showed in the Oval Office was of burial sites for more than 1000 white farmers and he "twisted" the facts to push a false narrative about mass killings of white people in his country. Police Minister Senzo Mchunu was talking about a video clip that was played during the meeting between Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House on Wednesday (local time) that showed an aerial view of a rural road with lines of white crosses erected on either side. "Now this is very bad," Trump said as he referred to the clip that was part of a longer video that was played in the meeting. "These are burial sites, right here. Burial sites, over a thousand, of white farmers, and those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning." Mchunu said the crosses did not mark graves or burial sites, but were a temporary memorial put up in 2020 to protest the killings of all farmers across South Africa. They were put up during a funeral procession for a white couple who were killed in a robbery on their farm, Mchunu said. A son of the couple who were killed and a local community member who took part in the procession also said the crosses do not represent burial sites and were taken down after the protest. South Africa struggles with extremely high levels of violent crime, although farm killings make up a small percentage of the country's overall homicides. Both white and Black farmers are attacked, and sometimes killed, and the government has condemned the violence against both groups. Whites make up around 7% of South Africa's 62 million people but generally still have a much better standard of living than the Black majority more than 30 years after the end of the apartheid system of racial segregation. Whites make up the majority of the country's wealthier commercial farmers. Mchunu said Trump's false claims that the crosses represented more than 1000 burial sites was part of his "genocide story" — referring to the US president's baseless allegations in recent weeks that there is a widespread campaign in South Africa to kill white farmers and take their land that he has said amounts to a genocide. "They are not graves. They don't represent graves," Mchunu said regarding the video that has become prominent on social media since it was shown in the White House. "And it was unfortunate that those facts got twisted to fit a false narrative about crime in South Africa." "We have respect for the president of the United States," Mchunu added. "But we have no respect for his genocide story whatsoever." The White House, when asked about Mchunu's remarks, pointed back to press secretary Karoline Leavitt's comments a day earlier at her briefing, when she said that "the video showed crosses that represent the dead bodies of people who were racially persecuted by their government". Of the more than 5700 homicides in South Africa from January through March, six occurred on farms and, of those, one victim was white, said Mchunu. "In principle, we do not categorise people by race, but in the context of claims of genocide of white people, we need to unpack the killings in this category," he said. Lourens Bosman, who is a former lawmaker in the national Parliament, said he took part in the procession shown in the video the Trump administration played. It happened near the town of Newcastle in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal in September 2020. The crosses were symbols to white and Black farmers and farmworkers who had been killed across South Africa over the previous 26 years, Bosman said. Trump's falsehoods that South Africa's government is fueling the persecution and killing of its minority white farmers has been strongly denied by the country, which says the allegations are rooted in misinformation. Ramaphosa pushed for this week's meeting with Trump in what he said was an attempt to change Trump's mind over South Africa and correct misconceptions about the country to rebuild ties. Trump issued an executive order on February 7 that cut all US financial assistance to South Africa and accused it of mistreating white Afrikaner farmers and seizing their land. The order accused Ramaphosa's government of "fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners". Trump's executive order also accused South Africa of pursuing an anti-American foreign policy and specifically criticised its decision to launch a case at the International Court of Justice accusing US ally Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The order accused South Africa of supporting the Palestinian militant group Hamas through that case.
The South African
24-05-2025
- Politics
- The South African
Most farm murder victims in South Africa are BLACK
Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has moved to correct what he describes as a longstanding misrepresentation in the reporting of farm murders in South Africa, stating that black victims have historically included the majority of the affected. 'The history of farm murders in the country has always been distorted and reported in an unbalanced way; the truth is that farm murders have always included African people in more numbers,' Mchunu said. Mchunu made the remarks, when he was presenting the fourth quarter crime statistics of the previous financial year (1 January 2025 – 31 March 2025) in Pretoria, on Friday. The report showed a notable decrease in farm attacks, with six incidents recorded in the fourth quarter, compared to 12 in the previous quarter. The victims included two farm owners, two farm employees, one farm manager, and one farm dweller. While the South African Police Service (SAPS) does not categorise crime statistics by race, Mchunu addressed the racial aspect in response to recent claims of a 'white genocide' in the country. 'The two farm owners that were murdered during the fourth quarter were African and not white. Further to that, the two farm employees and one farm manager were also African – it is the one farm dweller that was white. 'Last quarter, we reported that a total of 12 farm murders had been reported, with one farm owner having been murdered. 'Notable progress has been made in respect of investigations into these cases, and a number of arrests have been made,' Mchunu said. Mchunu reiterated the SAPS's commitment to prioritising all types of crimes with urgency; as well as to conduct thorough investigations to ensure that justice is ultimately served. He further highlighted the government's commitment to the National Rural Safety Strategy, which aims to create a safe and secure environment in rural areas. 'We have appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee multiple times to account for our efforts. The National Rural Safety Strategy is designed to create a safe and secure environment in rural areas, and we are committed to fully implementing it. 'As from this year, when we release the first quarter results, we will include a number of other categories of crime in the country, to show a fuller picture. For an example, killings in rural and urban areas, instead of just on commercial farms, but for now, our statistics are based on commercial farms,' the Minister said. Mchunu also sought to dispel misconceptions about so-called 'land grabbing' in South Africa. While confirming that land invasions do occur, he rejected the notion that they reflect government policy. 'Land invasions are not government policy but are by and large acts of desperation for land by African people who find themselves landless and in need to settle. It is sporadic and it remains unlawful, hence the cases and investigations thereof,' he explained. Mchunu stressed that the policy of expropriation without compensation is a lawful and systematic effort to resolve the issue of landlessness. 'My colleague in the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development, [Minister Mzwanele Nyhontso], has expressed concern about the misuse of the term 'land grab' and will provide further clarification next week,' Mchunu said. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
