The 4m-high (13ft) electric steel gates, capped with spikes, creak open as Marthinus, a farmer, drives through in his pick-up truck. Cameras positioned at the entrance track his every move, while reams of barbed wire surround the farm in the rural Free State province in the heart of South Africa.
It feels like a prison, he says as the gates clank shut behind him. If they want to come and kill us they can. At least it will take them time to get to me.
The fear of being attacked is very real for the white Afrikaner, who manages a farm with his wife and two young daughters. He did not want us to use his full name.
His grandfather and his wife's grandfather were both murdered in farm attacks, and he lives a two-hour drive from where the body of 21-year-old farm manager Brendan Horner was discovered five years ago, tied to a pole, with a rope around his neck.
Marthinus says he can't take a chance with his own family and, in February, they applied for refugee status in the US.
I'm prepared to do that to get a better life for my wife and children. Because I don't want to be slaughtered and be hanged on a pole, he says.
Our Afrikaner people are an endangered species.
Not all white South Africans agree that they're being targeted and black farmers are also victims of the country's high crime rate.
It's estimated that thousands of Afrikaners - who are mostly white descendants of early European settlers - have begun the lengthy process of applying for refugee status in the US since President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this year, although the figures haven't been made public.
Despite announcing in October that the US would reduce its yearly intake of refugees from 125,000 to 7,500, Trump has made the resettlement of Afrikaners a priority.
A presidential document stated that those accepted would primarily be Afrikaner South Africans and other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands.
For Marthinus it's a way out.
I will give my whole life just so that my wife and my kids can be safe. Living in fear, you know? Nobody deserves a life like that.
Violent crime in South Africa is endemic.
According to official reports, there is an average of 63 murders every day across the country. While this statistic demonstrates a slight decrease on the same period in 2024, South Africa's homicide rate remains one of the highest globally.
Black farmers are also victims, facing similar threats to their safety. On the outskirts of Ficksburg, Thabo Makopo manages a modest farm and expresses concern for his own security amidst rising attacks on agricultural properties.
Despite the narratives of targeted attacks based on race, some, like Morgan Barrett—a white farmer—reject the notion of an ethnic genocide and stress that criminals are indiscriminately motivated by profit.
As the landscape of farming in South Africa continues to evolve under the weight of historical grievances and contemporary fears, the perspectives of the farming community reveal a complex tapestry of experience and emotion.
