South Africans fleeing from 'white genocide' forced to leave beloved pets at home

South Africans are fleeing from "white genocide" and being forced to leave their pets in the country, an animal charity has warned.

Pedigree lapdogs, Pekingese, Shih Tzus and other pampered breeds that once enjoyed regular grooming sessions and slept alongside their owners, are overwhelming animal shelters as Afrikaner families depart for the United States.

The dogs are being left behind with domestic workers, many of whom have simultaneously lost their employment, or dumped at rescue centres, sometimes mere hours before their owners board charter flights under US President Donald Trump's refugee programme.

Washington provides no assistance with relocating pets, and arranging private transport for a single animal costs between R35,000 and R50,000, roughly £1,500 to £2,150.

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Jacqui Martheze, who manages Woodrock Animal Rescue in Pretoria, said her outreach workers were routinely discovering pedigree dogs in impoverished neighbourhoods.

"They're in the care of staff who have lost their jobs and who don't have the money to keep up the lifestyles these dogs are used to — the grooming, the vaccinations, the specialist food," she said. "It's a terrible solution to a problem that should have been thought about sooner."

The shelter, which has depended on charitable donations for more than four decades, currently houses around 500 animals and has no remaining capacity.

In the past week alone, Ms Martheze received 20 calls from families preparing to leave for America but was only able to take in seven of their dogs.

With a further charter flight due to depart this week, she said the enquiries were showing no sign of easing.

The exodus has become one of South Africa's most polarising issues.

Since Mr Trump signed an executive order in February last year, suspending aid to Pretoria and granting Afrikaners refugee status on the basis that white farmers faced persecution, more than 7,700 have been admitted to the US.

In May, the annual quota was raised to 17,500, even as his administration remained largely closed to all other refugee groups.

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The flights come with strings attached: passengers must repay their airfare in instalments once they secure employment in the US.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has branded those departing as cowards and forecast their eventual return.

Many fellow Afrikaners have been equally scathing, accusing the emigrants of endorsing Mr Trump's unfounded claim of "white genocide" by black South Africans in exchange for a new life abroad rather than remaining to help rebuild the country.

Afrikaners, descendants principally of Dutch, German and French Huguenot settlers, constitute roughly four per cent of South Africa's 63 million population, within a broader white minority of about seven per cent.

Mr Trump's dispute with Mr Pretoria extends well beyond the Afrikaner question.

The US president has taken aim at South Africa's race-based economic empowerment legislation, its policy on land expropriation, its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and its relationship with Iran.

These grievances have now become entangled with a fresh round of American tariffs, deepening the diplomatic rift between the two countries.

The strained relationship was made worse when the Trump administration declared South Africa's previous ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, persona non grata and expelled him after he characterised the US government as a supremacist movement.

Mr Rasool's removal left Pretoria needing to find a replacement capable of navigating Washington.

Roelf Meyer, who takes up the ambassadorial post this week, is Pretoria's chosen candidate to calm the storm.

An Afrikaner himself, Mr Meyer played a central role in the negotiations that dismantled apartheid, a background President Ramaphosa will be hoping makes him a more palatable interlocutor for the White House.

Mr Meyer has said convincing the US it is wrong in its assumptions about how Afrikaners are treated will be critical to restoring normal ties between the two nations.

Those leaving South Africa insist they are fleeing violent crime and a government that no longer welcomes them.

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