Brutal farm murder raises concerns about ongoing farm attacks in South Africa

A brutal farm murder on Monday, 5 October 2026, has raised further concerns about farm attacks in South Africa.

Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) leader Corne Mulder said that Hannetjie van Zyl became the latest victim of a brutal farm murder last night.

She was struck over the head with so much force at her farm gate on the Doornpan road near Ottosdal in North West that she succumbed to her injuries en route to the hospital.

“This incident once again confirms the gruesome reality of farm attacks in South Africa,” Mulder said in a press statement.

“This is a reality that certain media outlets, opinion leaders, and government often deny or dismiss as ‘ordinary crime’.”

Mulder urged President Cyril Ramaphosa to acknowledge and condemn the reality of farm murders in South Africa.

“Ramaphosa should unequivocally condemn the song ‘Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer’ by personally speaking out against it,” he said.

He added that those who are raising awareness of farm murders are increasingly labelled unpatriotic or far-right for informing the international community of it.

Mulder argued that the denial of the problem of farm murders in South Africa perpetuates the violence.

“The government and President Ramaphosa refuse to acknowledge the extent of farm attacks and declare it a priority crime,” Mulder said.

“This means that they fail to fulfil their primary constitutional duty to protect all the people of South Africa.”

He said that when a number of women were killed on the East Rand, Ramaphosa immediately condemned it, demanding that it should be prioritised.

He added that this is how any serious crime problem in South Africa ought to be handled.

However, it raises the question as to why the agricultural community and the killing of farmers do not deserve the same urgency and official condemnation.

“According to AfriForum, there were 184 farm attacks and 29 farm murders in 2025,” Mulder said.

“These figures would have been much higher if farmers and rural communities had not organised their own security structures.”

“Farm attacks are a reality, as are the violent consequences of hate speech and incitement such as ‘Kill the Boer’, which the President refuses to condemn.”

The ANC launched a violent campaign to clear white farmers off their land

Dr James Myburgh recently provided details about the origins, history, and nature of farm attacks in South Africa.

In the mid-1980s, there was a burst of violence against people living isolated on farms driven by a campaign from the ANC.

The ANC campaign was directed from exile to clear the white farmers off their land, which included general incitement and landmine warfare.

“This was also how the ‘Kill the Boer’ chant was first injected into South Africa during the revolutionary ferment of that period,” he said.

Myburgh said farm attacks disappeared for a period, but then dramatically reemerged in 1990. The reason for this was also ANC activity.

In February 1990, President F.W. de Klerk unbanned the ANC and lifted all restrictions on its legal operations.

“The ANC underground, however, continued with illegal work, and it set about rebuilding the paramilitary units that had been shattered through state repression,” Myburgh said.

In 1991, the South African Agricultural Union counted 66 murders stemming from 327 attacks.

The numbers rose relentlessly through the 1990s, reaching 150 murders per year in 1997, a level that was then sustained for several years.

“In mid-1998, a grim milestone was passed, with 500 people being killed in farm attacks under ANC rule,” he said.

Despite these concerning statistics, the ANC government rejected suggestions that farm attacks could be considered anything other than ordinary crime.

Myburgh said that the ANC government did not act to curtail this kind of predatory criminal violence by building up the state institutions necessary to combat it.

Instead, the government steadily decreased the capacity of the security services that were most suited to fight farm murders.

“Specialised police units, such as the murder and robbery units, were dismantled, and the rural commando system was abolished,” he said.

“Over time, armed attacks on people in or near their homes came to be regarded in South Africa as an unpleasant fact of life,” he said.

“This normalisation of farm and home attacks and the government’s dismantling of the state’s capacity to combat this crime has had terrible consequences.”

He said that reversing the demoralisation of South African society requires recognising the farm murder phenomenon for the horror that it is and was.

“No South African, wherever they live, should have to fear even their own houses, to fear both day and night alike,” he said.