Reports that first white South African 'refugees' due to arrive in US next week

The first group of white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans is reportedly due to arrive in the United States early next week.

They claim to be persecuted in their home country and have been granted “refugee status” by President Donald Trump.

The US president in February signed an executive order halting all aid to South Africa, accusing the government of doing “terrible things” to Afrikaners.

He described them as the victims of “unjust racial discrimination” saying their land was being taken away from them.

Trump’s view appears to stem from a recent law that allows land expropriation without compensation in extremely rare cases.

South African officials say the policy is part of efforts to address land-ownership disparities that are one of the starkest legacies of apartheid.

A large percentage of the country’s private land is still white-owned and, in reality, not a single expropriation has taken place.

The Afrikaner ethnic group are mostly descendants of Dutch colonialists and have a long history in the agricultural sector.

They make up about 60 per cent of the country’s white minority, which itself makes up about 7.2 cent of the population.

Those that have applied to for refugee status in the United States also say they are hoping to move to escape crime, and particularly farm murders.

Police statistics show that out of 26,000 murders last year, just 44 were linked to farming communities. Crime researchers say the overwhelming majority of murder victims are black.

According to the SA Chamber of Commerce in the US, over 67,000 people have expressed interest in Trump’s offer.

The assertion that white South Africans are discriminated against has spread in far-right circles for years and been echoed by Trump’s white South African-born ally, Elon Musk.

Many prominent Afrikaners and other South Africans have shouted down the US president’s statements saying they are patently false.

Trump’s executive order came after he suspended all US refugees admissions, citing security and cost concerns.