Des Erasmus
Attackers used boiling water, blowtorches, waterboarding, suffocation and other forms of torture to force victims of farm and smallholding attacks to hand over their possessions, according to a new report from AfriForum.
The civil rights organisation reviewed 47 attacks between 2019 and 2025 for its More than robbery: Violence during attacks on farms and smallholdings in South Africa report, which was released on Wednesday.
AfriForum is lobbying to have farm attacks classified a priority crime requiring specialised investigation by the Hawks.
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A day before releasing the report, the organisation launched a petition again calling on government and the Hawks to make that designation, saying that farm attacks frequently involve “multiple armed perpetrators, planning, reconnaissance and extreme violence against people living and working in isolated rural areas”.
The report found there were recurring patterns of severe violence, including the use of pain and fear to extract information or compel victims to meet attackers’ demands.
“After gaining access to victims’ homes or property, attackers frequently tied victims up to subject them to torture. This torture is aimed at forcing the victims to comply with their demands for items such as money, firearms or keys to a safe.”
Among the attacks examined in the report was the February 2024 assault on farmer Hayden Luck and four of his employees at Mooiplaas outside East London.
The attackers posed as prospective dog buyers before overpowering Luck and employee Bongani Yekani. Luck was bound with duct tape, forced into his vehicle and taken back to the farmhouse, where he was beaten while the attackers demanded money and keys to his ammunition safe.
The four employees identified in the report were Yekani, Maboy Veni, Zameka Gelem and Andile Khangelana.
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A subsequent Eastern Cape High Court judgment found that the employees were accosted and confined in another building while the house was ransacked. Gelem was brought to the house and forced to call Luck’s wife to ask where the safe keys were while an attacker held a gun to her head.
Luck told the Daily Dispatch shortly after the attack that Gelem was struck with a firearm and an open hand.
Khangelana was also struck with a firearm after attackers ordered him to fetch an electric grinder and crowbar to break open the safes. Veni was then made to find the tools and help load stolen property.
The report said Luck was then waterboarded before being forced into a bath of hot water.
“They put a towel over my head, poured cold water over me so I couldn’t breathe, to try and get information out of me,” Luck said.
The attackers also threatened to dismember him with a chainsaw and held a knife to his throat before fleeing with firearms, vehicles and other property. Two attackers were arrested after a police pursuit.
In another case, Pierre, 59, and Belinda de Kock, 56, were found murdered on their farm near Velddrif in the Western Cape in June 2023.
Belinda’s throat was slit and Pierre suffered a stab wound to the neck. The couple was forced to transfer R230,000 into bank accounts belonging to two of the perpetrators before they were killed. One attacker was later convicted.
The report also cites the May 2024 murders of Christo Morrison, 76, and his wife, Christa, 73, on their farm near Glen in the Free State.
Christo was stabbed with sheep shears, while Christa was tied to a chair and tortured with a stun gun until she transferred R118,000 into an attacker’s bank account. She was then struck on the head with an iron and had her throat slit. Her half-naked body was found in a septic pit, while her husband’s body was recovered from a borehole.
Acting judge Nompumelelo Gloria Gusha, after viewing police photographs of the couple, said: “I have seen many photographs of bodies during my career, but looking at these photographs was extremely difficult for me.”
“No person deserves to be attacked and murdered in this way.”
AfriForum said the violence was not confined to farmers. Victims included farm workers, security personnel, family members and others legally present on farms and smallholdings. The incidents listed in the report stretch across all nine provinces.
One of the cases involved 77-year-old farm foreman Simon Makhotha, who was attacked near Zastron in the Free State in January 2021.
According to the report, three attackers entered his home while he slept and demanded access to the main farmhouse. When they were unable to open a safe, they stole solar panels and groceries, then assaulted and stabbed Makhotha before attempting to drown him in a septic tank.
He was kicked and pelted with stones as he fought to prevent the attackers from holding his head beneath the sewage water. He survived and was found by neighbours the following morning. The stolen solar panels and groceries were later recovered in a nearby field.
In another attack, on a farm near Ogies in Mpumalanga in November 2021, seven armed attackers held Niël Bierman, his wife Sonja and their three children hostage after posing as people seeking accommodation.
After finding only firearms in the family safe, the attackers attempted to force the couple’s six-year-old son into a kitchen oven while his restrained father watched “in fear”, as Sonja recalled. The family escaped without serious physical injury but was severely traumatised.
AfriForum said another recurring feature was violence that was disproportionate to what was necessary to carry out a robbery.
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In October 2025, Roulé Uys, 70, Stephanus Botha, 24, and a security guard were attacked on a farm near Carolina in Mpumalanga.
“The one man actually had fun laughing at us. They were enjoying themselves and took pleasure in torturing us,” Botha was quoted saying.
Uys was repeatedly assaulted and scalded with boiling water while the attackers demanded money and firearms.
“Where is the money you keep in the house? […] Tell me where the weapons are!” she recalled one attacker demanding.
AfriForum said it based the report largely on open-source information, including media reports, court proceedings, police accounts and testimony from victims, relatives and first responders.
It adopted its own working definition of torture for the study, covering the deliberate infliction of severe physical or psychological pain, brutality or violence. This included beatings, mutilation, burning, extortion, intimidation and sexual assault.
The organisation said that not every farm attack between 2019 and 2025 involved torture. The 47 cases were specifically selected because sufficient information existed for AfriForum to classify them as involving torture.
“The key findings in this report point to a recurring pattern of severe physical and mental pain and suffering, inflicted by attackers who use a variety of tools, extortion through torture and excessive violence,” the report said.
