South African white genocide does not exist, new ambassador to US tells BBC

Figure caption, Are claims of a white genocide in South Africa real?

South Africa's new ambassador to Washington has a personal reason to challenge Donald Trump's assertion that there is a genocide against white Afrikaners - he is "a born Afrikaner" himself.

"Is he talking about us?", Roelf Meyer remembers thinking, when he first heard President Trump say it.

His response to the US president's claim is blunt.

The notion of a mass attack on the white Afrikaner minority in South Africa does not exist, he told the BBC, adding that his identity gave him the legitimacy to say so.

Meyer was one of the chief mediators to end white-minority rule known as apartheid in South Africa in the 1990s. He was appointed ambassador to the US in April, after diplomatic relations between the US and South Africa plummeted.