‘I didn’t come here for fun’ – Afrikaner defends refugee status in USpublished at 21:45 British Summer Time 21 May
Nomia Iqbal and Cai Pigliucci
Reporting from Buffalo, New York
US Afrikaner refugee responds to South Africa president’s ‘coward’ comment
Two weeks ago, 46-year-old Charl Kleinhaus was living on his family farm in Mpumalanga province, South Africa. With its scenic beauty, wildlife and deep canyons, it’s known as “the place where the sun rises”.
His new home – for now – is a budget hotel near an American highway.
He and dozens of other white South Africans were moved to the US under President Donald Trump’s controversial policy to protect them from the discrimination he alleges they are facing – an accusation that South Africa rejects.
Kleinhaus defends the US president, telling the BBC he left his homeland after receiving death threats in WhatsApp messages.
“I had to leave a five-bedroom house, which I will lose now,” Kleinhaus tells the BBC, adding that he also left behind his car, his dogs and even his mother. “I didn’t come here for fun,” he adds.
Kleinhaus is one of a group of 59 who arrived on Tuesday at Dulles airport, near Washington DC, after Trump’s administration fast-tracked their applications.
Afrikaners are a white ethnic minority who ran South Africa during the apartheid era, implementing racist policies of segregation in the country until the regime was officially abolished in 1994.
But more than 30 years on, black farmers own only a small fraction of the country’s best farmland, with the majority still in white hands.
Some fellow Afrikaners have described Mr Kleinhaus and the group as opportunists, and that being a victim of crime is not equivalent to the type of persecution that deserves refugee status.
Kleinhaus acknowledges that the murder rate of farmers is low in South Africa, but says he does not want to become a victim, saying he has received threats via WhatsApp messages.
