First group flying to US

The primary set of 49 white South Africans to be granted refugee standing by President Donald Trump’s administration are on their strategy to the US.

On Sunday they boarded a flight from Johannesburg which is because of land in Washington DC in a while Monday.

This comes after a weekend of hypothesis about when the Afrikaners would depart for America, amid criticism from the South African authorities who described the US resettlement scheme as “politically motivated”.

Relations between South Africa and the US have been tense for months, after an government order in February wherein President Trump acknowledged that Afrikaners had been victims of “racial discrimination”.

The US has criticised home South African coverage, accusing the federal government of seizing land from white farmers with none compensation – one thing which the southern African nation says has not occurred.

Prime Trump adviser, South African-born Elon Musk, has beforehand stated there was a “genocide of white folks” in South Africa and accused the federal government of passing “racist possession legal guidelines”.

The claims of a genocide of white folks have been broadly discredited.

In a press release on Friday, South Africa’s overseas ministry stated accusations the federal government discriminated in opposition to the nation’s white minority had been “unfounded” and that the US’s resettlement scheme was an try and undermine the nation’s “constitutional democracy”.

The assertion added that the nation had labored “tirelessly” to cease discrimination, given its historical past of racial oppression beneath apartheid.

Bilateral tensions have been strained for some instances as President Trump tasked his administration with formulating plans to doubtlessly resettle Afrikaners, a bunch with principally Dutch ancestry, within the US.

In March, South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, was expelled after accusing President Trump of utilizing “white victimhood as a canine whistle”, resulting in the US accusing Mr Rasool of “race-baiting”.

The US has additionally criticised South Africa for taking an “aggressive” place in opposition to Israel on the Worldwide Court docket of Justice (ICJ), the place Pretoria has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s authorities of genocide in opposition to folks in Gaza – a declare which the Israelis strongly reject.

The present group of white South African refugees contains 49 folks, who’re anticipated to land in Washington DC in a while Monday, earlier than persevering with to Texas.

President Trump’s openness to accepting Afrikaner refugees comes because the US has engaged in a wider crackdown on migrants and asylum seekers from different nations.