farm murders

A young gang member shows a gun and ammunition, in Bonteheuwel neighborhood in Cape Town. AFP PHOTO/RODGER BOSCH

Read: Farm attack goes wrong, suspected attacker shot dead

This criminal was clearly met with a big surprise.

farm murders

A young gang member shows a gun and ammunition, in Bonteheuwel neighborhood in Cape Town. AFP PHOTO/RODGER BOSCH

Farm attacks, they are without question on the rise, everyone has their own reasoning for why that is though. Many of our countries farmers have publically stated that they are fearing for their lives. These farmhouses are usually surrounded by mass amounts of open land, plenty of place for criminals to quietly sneak up to the house, without much risk of being heard.

This wasn’t the case in Roodekraal after an apparent farm attacker was shot and killed by the farmer. EWN reports that the man is believed to be part of an armed gang that had entered a local farm house. The criminals did not find what they expected though as the farmer opened fire on them. The gang member died of a fatal gunshot wound, it appears his fellow gang members fled the scene and managed to escape.

Watch: MPs debated farm murders today, things got rather heated

Local SAPS officers are still investigating the incident in an attempt to understand the gangs motive. Was it a non-violent armed robbery or was it set to be another farm attack or even murder? ER24 confirmed the death of the one gunman to EWN.

“It is understood that an unknown number of gunmen entered the home. The owner then apparently opened fire, killing the one.”

So unsurprisingly, the discussion on farm murders have always related to race, hence the “white genocide” claim. Carte Blanche reports that February of this year has seen the most farm attacks in a single month since 1990. Whichever way you look at it, that is an incredibly alarming statistic. More specifically, there were a whopping 46 farm attacks in the month, 16 of those were murders. Is it really a simple black and white race issue though?

Carte Blanche also reports that only 6% of the country’s commercial farmers are black, (that is a MASSIVE problem in itself) the attack stats link up with that, showing 6% of the attacked farmers are black farmers.

In this particular incident though, it is great that the farmer and his family remained safe. Maybe this will scare a good few criminals away from farms all around the country.