Lack of trust in police impacting farm murder stats, says AfriForum
Lobby group AfriForum says a lack of trust in the police impacts the number of people who are willing to report a farm attack or farm murder to law enforcement.
AfriForum released its annual farm murder report for 2022 on Tuesday.
According to research done by the organisation, farm attacks decreased to from 415 the previous year to 333 in 2022, while there were 50 murders compared to the 55 in 2021.
The report also pointed out that 33% of the murder suspects were arrested.
“It’s is not clear whether the number of attacks actually decreased seeing as more and more cases are never reported to the police,” said AfriForum’s Jacques Broodryk.
Crime activist Ian Cameron added: “it is important for police to investigate each incident to avoid classifying it a farm attack while it may purely be a robbery.”
Cameron said farm attacks are often labelled as armed robbery or attempted murder which affects the statistics in the annual report.
“Farmers and employees need to work together to patrol their areas and share useful information that could help prevent these attacks before they happen.”
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