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Farm Murders Continue To Be Ignored In South Africa As Four Parys Farmers Charged With Murder, ANC Sings ‘Kill The Boer’

By Jinger Jarrett
Published on: 20:06 PST, Feb 2, 2016

Four Parys farmers were charged with murder after two farm workers were found assaulted and later died from their injuries. The conflict started when a Parys farmer was allegedly assaulted by two of his farm workers in Parys. The four Parys farmers allegedly took matters into their own hands and beat the two farm workers with a wrench. Both of the workers later died, and the farmers were taken into custody and charged with murder. As tensions rise in South Africa over these murders, farm murders are largely forgotten in South Africa as the African National Congress-led government refuses to take action to end the farm murders.

News 24 reported that a farmer was confronted by an armed assailant with a gun demanding R20,000 (Approximately $1,233.80). Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said that the farmer said he was feeding his dogs when the armed assault took place.

“The complainant was beaten on the forehead and on the right hand with the firearm butt. The complainant managed to push the suspect and ran inside the house where he managed to press the panic button and it is alleged that the suspect run away.”

He said the farmers, Johan Cilliers, 26, his father Mocke Cilliers, 61, Anton Loggeburg, 49, and Gert van der Westhuizen, 46 then found the assailants and allegedly assaulted them.

“They then met with two males Samuel Tjexa, 35 and Seun Tangasha [believed to be] 28 or 29 years old at about 8km away from the mentioned farm and confronted them. The two males were badly assaulted by the farmers who confronted them.”

Police arrived later to find both men. Tangasha died at the scene, while Tjexa later passed away.

As previously reported in The Inquisitr, farm murders are up for the fifth straight year in South Africa, and farming in South Africa is the most dangerous occupation in the world. Since the end of apartheid in 1994, approximately 3,000 farmers have been murdered, although the numbers reported by the civil rights group Afriforum are much lower. The ANC-led government under President Jacob Zuma has failed to address the farm murders even though Afriforum has called for the government and police to make solving crimes related to farm murders and farm attacks a high priority.

Telegraph UK reported that the four farmers later appeared in court to answer murder charges against them. They appeared in court in a small town outside of Johannesburg to answer the charges that they had beaten to death the two farm workers for attacking another farmer. Amid a tense scene and under heavy police presence they applied for bail through the Parys magistrates’ court.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the ANC showed up to protest the murders and sang the banned song “Kill the Boer,” a song calling for killing white South Africans who are descendants of the Dutch and Huguenot population that settled in South Africa in the late 17th century. A contingent of white farmers appeared in support of the farmers who were charged, and there was an exchange of rocks and bottles between the two groups. Barbed wire barricades kept the two groups separated.

Although farm attacks decreased in 2015 from 279 in 2014, farm murders increased with 62 murders in 2015, up from 61 murders in 2014. The province of Gautang, where the two farm workers were murdered, reported the highest number of farm murders with 13 followed by Limpopo with 11 and KwaZulu-Natal with eight. Farm murders are highest in provinces where the Economic Freedom Fighters have the most support.

[Photo by Pixabay]

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