Original subtitles

Hello and welcome to Global Eye from the BBC World Service.

In the next half hour, we'll bring you some of the best

of our global investigative journalism and reportage.

I'm Nomsa Maseko, the BBC's Southern Africa Correspondent,

and I'm based here in South Africa,

which recently hosted leaders from around the world for the G20 summit.

Here in Johannesburg, South Africa's economic heartland,

the Government has been giving the city a makeover,

filling in potholes,

fixing traffic lights and painting buildings

in preparation for the summit.

Yet beneath the fresh coat of paint,

the gathering has become a lightning rod for anger,

exposing deep-seated social dysfunction,

racial divisions and economic deprivation

that many residents feel have been ignored for far too long.

Later in the programme,

BBC Eye investigates the reality just a few miles from the G20 venue,

where people live in derelict buildings,

often hijacked by criminal gangs

and in conditions unfit for human habitation.

And President Trump refused to attend the G20

due to the widely discredited claim

Afrikaners are the victims of white genocide.

Are South Africa's white minority

really victims of large-scale killings and land grabs?

I mean, you see a lot of things

in the last few years that's been brutal -

murder and torture and all that kind of stuff.

I don't want that to happen with us.

Here in South Africa's biggest and richest city,

there's always been a stark contrast

between the haves and the have-nots.

Shimmering skyscrapers have long stood alongside festering slums.

And, of course, the apartheid regime

added a brutal racial dimension to the economic divides.

South Africa hadn't hosted an international event on the scale

of the G20 since the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Officials here hoped that the summit would allow the country to champion

issues vital to developing nations,

making borrowing cheaper for countries

that pay two to four times more in interest than richer nations,

and persuading leaders to scale up spending

on climate disaster resilience.

But despite attempts to downplay it,

the meeting was dominated

by Donald Trump's very public decision not to attend.

The contrast between global diplomacy and local reality

is stark in Johannesburg itself. Its central business district,

once a symbol of wealth and power during the apartheid era,

fell into decline after big businesses moved out.

Over time, gangs moved in.

BBC Eye has gained unprecedented access to these buildings

to uncover a story of organised crime, political corruption

and squalid living conditions that shame this city.

Here's Ayanda Charlie's report.

Johannesburg's inner city stands on the brink of collapse.

Once a symbol of ambition, it has become a wasteland of neglect.

In an area of only seven square miles,

there are hundreds of derelict or abandoned buildings.

A vast number of these buildings are infested with crime...

They hide here.

..and are unfit for human habitation.

Can the City of Johannesburg be saved?

Or is it an impossible dream?

Ever since I've lived in Joburg,

a lot of what I would hear is that, you know,

"Be careful when you're in the inner city."

You know, "Watch your back, keep your belongings close to yourself

"because you might most likely get pickpocketed."

Uh... Or mugged.

There's a lot of criminal activity,

drug use, lots of homelessness in the inner city.

It's not a place you go mindlessly.

We are not going to be apologetic. Once we say building is hijacked,

it means a crime has been committed.

Under South Africa's constitution,

everyone has a right to adequate housing.

So, basically, today we disconnect hijacked buildings

across Jeppestown area.

But for as long as I can remember,

the city has been spiralling out of control.

See what you found here. The needles.

We're driving into Hillbrow, a no-go zone for most people...

SIREN WAILS

..where the murder rate ranks in the top 1% in the world.

We're headed to a notorious city-owned abandoned building

called Vannin Court.

All right, I lead the way, you go behind me?

INDISTINCT CHAT Perfect.

Around 300 people live in Vannin Court.

The people are running away from me immediately.

Good, thank you.

One young man has agreed to show me around.

Take me from floor to floor and show me around. Yeah.

No water? No water. No electricity.

OK.

Bedroom.

Lounge, OK.

I'm taken to an apartment on the ground floor.

So this is your room.

Oh, this is your kitchen area? Yeah, it's my kitchen.

The municipality is saying anything about...

So, why don't you have water? What have they said? Let me ask you that.

OK.

OK.

As this building is owned by the city,

under normal circumstances, it would receive income from tenants' rent.

So you pay how much?

Oh. How does that work? How come you don't have to pay?

So you charge people to live in this unit?

Another guy collect the money?

Yes. That's what I'm trying to understand.

Hijacked buildings like this one are a common phenomenon

in which occupants take control of a building

and collect rent for themselves.

So this is the toilet?

But there's no plumbing system.

Or does it work?

So everything flushes down properly?

The basement, once a car park,

is down these stairs, but no-one wants to take me.

So this is the basement.

Human waste is literally filling the basement up...

So that's the smell?

..overflowing into the adjacent alleyway.

The sewage situation is worse than I thought,

but I've walked past, driven past those parts of the city

so many times, and you can smell it.

But these are permanent broken sewage systems and pipes.

And people live there permanently.

So the only time you get attention from the city council

is when it's election time.

Nelson Khetani lives just a mile away

in a building owned by the city called MBV1.

This building is a rare example of temporary accommodation

provided when the city did evict people from another building.

So this used to be, like, a laundry area?

Wow.

Human waste.

So what happened here? Did the pipes...?

So what do you do?

The shocking thing is, Nelson and his fellow residents

were moved here way back in 2008 from a building called San Jose.

He still pays rent to the city,

but his so-called temporary accommodation

has continued for 17 years.

If you were to compare this building to San Jose,

would you say this is better or worse?

Residents like Nelson feel abandoned

and are left to rue the city's broken promises.

When you ask the city where the permanent accommodation

you were supposed to be moved into is, what do they say?

City has no money. There's no money.

According to a recent report,

more than three-quarters of so-called bad buildings

have no water, sanitation,

refuse removal or electricity.

But how did we get here?

Johannesburg, The City of Gold,

has always been known as the financial

and industrial centre of South Africa.

But by the 1990s, the inner city was in steady decline,

barely sustaining the white minority it had once been designed for.

When apartheid fell, Johannesburg became legally open to all races.

A huge population influx, combined with underinvestment

and the departure of wealthy landlords,

placed immense pressure on the inner city.

Buildings fell into disrepair

and became havens for illegal activity.

When I started making this film,

I thought it was about abandoned buildings,

but I now see it's about abandoned people,

and I've come to realise that when the state becomes neglectful,

that's when criminals can prosper.

We're on our way right now to meet a man who says

that he used to be a building hijacker.

Now, this is the first time he's ever told his story,

and he's agreed to speak with us on condition that we hide his identity.

So how did you get into the building hijacking business?

Mm.

When you were in that building,

was there ever any notice of eviction?

Led to anything.

And then what happened? If they're not willing...

And you would have to go and intimidate them, scare them.

What else?

You were involved in the drug trade.

You were involved in hijacking buildings.

You did cause misery to a lot of people.

So how do you feel about that?

After the interview, this ex-hijacker told me he left the gang

because he discovered they were plotting to kill him.

He also shared his relief at leaving a criminal life

and moving out of the city.

The city council spokesman, Nthatisi Modingoane,

has agreed to meet me at the Moth Building

to discuss some of these claims.

The council did manage to clear this city-owned building

in December 2024, evacuating the occupants on safety grounds.

But it's the only evacuation they've completed in the last ten months.

So far in our investigation, we've heard claims from people

that there are very concerning criminal activity,

high-level criminal activity there,

like the drug trade, in some of these hijacked buildings.

What is the city doing to crack down on those criminal forces?

Yes. In some of the buildings,

some of the things that we see there are scary, to say the least.

But we will intensify our operations

and make sure that we clean the city.

There have been operations where we found people with drugs.

We have found people with illegal weapons.

And those cases are currently sitting with

the South African Police Services for further investigation.

We've also heard claims

that certain parts of the Government and the police,

in fact, are being bribed and are somehow colluding

with criminals and building hijackers

in the city to stall the justice system, essentially.

What do you know about that?

In our investigation thus far,

we have not had any physical reports or credible reports

that seems to suggest that there might be any wrongdoing.

Under South Africa's constitution,

in theory, everyone has the right to adequate housing,

but the city needs to do far more to turn that into a reality.

We contacted the Johannesburg police

and asked them if they were aware of any bribes,

intimidatory tactics or even murders by criminals

to prevent officers from carrying out their duties.

They did not reply.

We also asked the city council

about cutting off the water supply at Vannin Court.

They did not respond.

Apartheid - the almost 50 years

of institutionalised racial segregation has left

a deep and bitter legacy across this nation.

Under that political system,

marriages were banned across racial lines,

many skilled and semi-skilled jobs were reserved for white people,

and black people were forced to live

in what were called townships and homelands.

The shift from minority rule to democracy in 1994

left many white South Africans struggling to adjust.

Some claim they are now being driven out by violent crime,

economic decline and the looming threat of land expropriation.

Among some right-wing groups,

this narrative has been adopted as proof of a white genocide,

an assertion that has repeatedly been debunked

by the facts and statistics,

and rejected by South Africa's Government

and senior Afrikaner officials.

Since he returned to the White House,

the narrative has also been promoted by President Trump.

As he closed America's door to almost all refugees,

he opened it for one group in particular -

white South Africans.

For BBC Eye, Claire Mawisa has been following

a group of white South Africans caught in the storm of ideology,

fear and migration politics,

as she asks what truth, if any, lies behind the rhetoric.

It's a genocide that's taking place

that you people don't want to write about,

but it's a terrible thing that's taking place.

And farmers are being killed.

They happen to be white,

but whether they're white or black makes no difference to me.

I'm about to sign some very important executive orders

of our new administration. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

In February 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order

offering white Afrikaners refugee status in America.

He claimed Afrikaner land was being taken

by the South African Government without compensation.

A month later, the US cut most foreign aid to South Africa.

I've come to the town of Brits, just an hour's drive from Pretoria.

I want to meet some of the people

who are hoping to leave South Africa,

to try and understand what is pushing them to leave.

Hi, Carlien. Hi, nice to meet you. Claire. I'm very well, thank you.

Hello, hello. And you must be...? James. Nice to meet you, James.

My name is Claire.

Thank you so much for having me, guys.

Carlien is applying for refugee status to the United States

for herself and her three youngest children.

Carlien and her family came to Brits after the farm

they were living on was broken into and robbed.

Fortunately, they weren't at home.

Now 17, Stephen has almost finished school.

I want to go work in America to do farming.

I want to go in farming because I love farming.

It's a passion of mine since small.

Why didn't you want to become a farmer in South Africa?

It's dangerous here to become a farmer.

And it's...

It's just not the... It's not worth it

to become a farmer here and risk it to get maybe attacked.

Carlien has been unemployed for ten years.

She scrapes a living selling clothes online.

The situation with our crime,

every morning when they go to school,

I worry - I worry, is something happening?

Are they going to be OK?

We don't know, tonight. Someone... Someone can break in tonight.

I'm on my way to a farm in Free State Province.

I'm meeting farm manager Marthinus.

I mean, you see a lot of things that

in the last few years that's been brutally murdered

and tortured and all that kind of stuff.

I mean, you don't want to... I don't want that to happen with us.

Marthinus is speaking from bitter experience.

Both his wife's grandfather and his own grandfather

were murdered in farm attacks.

They came into my grandpa's bedroom.

He had a shotgun next to his bed.

And then when he grabbed the shotgun and he wants to aim him,

the guy took the shotgun.

I think he was 72 or 70 years old or something like that.

In February, Marthinus applied to become a refugee

in the United States.

He and his family have been interviewed

by the State Department and are now awaiting the verdict.

Does the thought of leaving South Africa,

does that break your heart? Does that make you sad?

Yes, that makes me really sad.

I mean, I've been born and raised here,

you know, but 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 or whatever, you know?

No, I don't want that.

No nation state or international court,

and none of South Africa's political parties,

including those representing Afrikaners,

claim there is a genocide in South Africa.

But it seems that murders on farms are fuelling a conspiracy theory.

I want to find out how prevalent they really are.

Are white farmers more at risk of facing violence or crime

on their farms than black farmers?

I will not say it's only the white farmers.

There's also black farmers and black workers

and foremen and people residing on farms get targeted.

Over 30 years after apartheid, 72% of privately owned farmland

is still white-owned.

Despite the land reform laws,

no white properties have been forcibly seized by the Government.

Black or white, many of the farmers

in this area have experienced a violent robbery.

I'm on my way to meet Catherine.

She has a farm and a polo school.

Originally from England,

she came to South Africa 25 years ago

and fell in love with the place.

She's lived here ever since.

I'm Claire. Yes. Catherine, nice to meet you.

One night in 2021, men came uninvited onto her property.

Well, I thought I was going to die that evening.

But, you know, they'd actually come to steal.

That's why they were here, to steal.

Do you think it's accurate to say

that white Afrikaners or white farm owners

are being intentionally attacked

because they are white Afrikaners?

The reason why farm attacks happen is essentially because of theft.

Most of the farms are owned by whites,

so inevitably it's whites that suffer from those attacks.

But there are plenty of rich black farmers

who also suffer attacks.

This story about a white genocide is absolutely absurd.

The story that is out there is that there's

a white genocide happening in South Africa.

That's the story that's out there.

It's an inaccurate story.

There are shootings every week in a township.

There are assaults every week in the township.

People have lost count.

Communities don't report things to the police.

It's just like they're numb

to the crime that's happening in their own environment.

Is there crime happening on farms in South Africa? Absolutely.

Have Afrikaners experienced that violent crime

on their properties? Absolutely. Nobody's denying that.

But, wow, at a...

..on a whole other scale,

crime is happening in townships

where mostly black people are living.

The divisions created by apartheid continue

to run deep in South African society.

And nowhere is that more clear than within families.

Hello, hello. How are you?

While Carlien is determined to seek asylum in America,

her daughter Wilma wants to stay.

Your mother's expressed interest,

and she's in the process of wanting to go to America.

What are your thoughts and feelings about that decision?

I'm happy for them, and I hope it works.

And I hope they can do it and they can start a new life,

um, you know, and get out of this country,

because it doesn't look hopeful.

President Trump has said that

there's a white genocide going on in South Africa,

and he wants to help the Afrikaners escape South Africa.

What are your thoughts and opinions?

They can call it a white genocide

because most white people own farmland.

But there's so much crime in South Africa -

if you're black, if you're white, doesn't matter.

So it's affecting everyone equally. Everyone equally.

In October, the US set a refugee cap of just 7,500,

reserving most spots for Afrikaners.

OK.

Carlien submitted her application

and has been advised to complete more paperwork.

Marthinus and his family have now been granted refugee status

and are preparing to move to the United States.

Now, here's some other great content

from the BBC World Service that you can find this week.

We've launched a brand-new podcast, Asia Specific,

hosted from Singapore in twice-weekly episodes

that will also appear in vision on the World Service YouTube channel.

I've been based in the BBC's Singapore bureau

for 20 years, covering stories all over Asia -

the 2011 Japan earthquake,

the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong,

and the Tokyo Olympics.

And during this time, Asia has become an economic powerhouse

and a region increasingly shaping the world

on everything from tech trends to clean energy.

Since Singapore achieved its independence in 1965 from Malaysia,

it has had one of the highest economic growths in the world,

helped by its strategic location

and time-zone advantage for the Eastern and Western world.

Singapore is one of the world's

most densely populated countries, and it has four official languages.

It's a melting pot of culture.

It's the perfect base for our new Asia Specific podcast,

where we have in-depth discussions on the region's big news issues,

as well as the unexpected trends shaping Asia.

Asia Specific - unpacked by those who know it best.

Thanks for joining me in South Africa.

We want your feedback on Global Eye.

Let us know what you think on social media,

Global Eye will be back

from the BBC's headquarters in London next week.

Goodbye.