In a shocking incident that has left South Africa reeling, a white farmer and his two employees appeared in court on Friday, accused of the brutal murder of two black women. The victims’ remains were allegedly fed to pigs. The accused, 60-year-old Zachariah Olivier, and his workers, 19-year-old Adriaan De Wet and 45-year-old William Musoro, were charged with murder after the decomposed bodies were found in a pigsty on a farm in Limpopo, a northern province, on August 20.
The police initiated an investigation following the report of a missing 45-year-old woman who had last been seen visiting the farm on August 17, accompanied by another woman, 35 years old. The police revealed that both women had suffered gunshot wounds. A 47-year-old foreign national man, who was with them, was also shot and subsequently hospitalized. The man, reportedly the husband of the younger woman, along with the two women, had allegedly wandered onto the farm to collect expired food items that had been discarded there.
The motive behind the gruesome crime remains a mystery. The incident sparked outrage and led to protests outside the Mankweng magistrate’s court, located approximately 350 kilometers northeast of Johannesburg. Protesters demanded that the accused be denied bail. The bail hearing has been postponed to September 10.
South Africa, a country grappling with a high crime rate and one of the highest homicide rates globally, was deeply shaken by the murders. The women’s wing of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party expressed their horror and outrage, calling for decisive action to curb violence against women.
The main opposition party, uMkhonto weSizwe, condemned the heinous murder of the two black women by what they termed as “racist white farmers”. On Friday, police figures revealed that nearly 6,200 people were murdered in South Africa between April and June this year, marking a 0.5-percent decrease compared to the same period last year.