Dulles, United States — A group of around 50 white South Africans arrived on Monday for resettlement in the United States after President Donald Trump granted them refuge status as victims of what he called a "genocide."

Trump essentially halted refugee arrivals after taking office, but is making an exception for the Afrikaners despite Pretoria's insistence that they do not face persecution in their homeland.

"Welcome to the land of the free," Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau said as he greeted the South Africans, several of whom were waving small American flags, at Dulles Airport in Virginia following their flight from Johannesburg.

"We're sending a clear message that the United States really rejects the egregious persecution of people on the basis of race in South Africa," Landau said.

Speaking at the White House shortly before the group's arrival, Trump, who is expected to meet with South African leaders next week, said the Afrikaners were fleeing a "terrible situation" back home.

Trump, whose tycoon ally Elon Musk was born in South Africa, said white farmers were being killed in the country and repeated an allegation of "genocide" that has been widely dismissed as absurd.

"It's a terrible situation taking place," the president said. "So we've essentially extended citizenship to those people to escape from that violence and come here."

Those being resettled just "happen to be white, but whether they're white or black makes no difference to me," Trump said.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa dismissed claims Afrikaners were being persecuted and said he recently told Trump what he is being told about their situation "is not true."

"A refugee is someone who has to leave their country out of fear of political persecution, religious persecution, or economic persecution," Ramaphosa said. "And they don't fit that bill."

"We're the only country on the continent where the colonizers came to stay and we have never driven them out of our country," he added at a forum in Abidjan.

South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola also scoffed at claims that white Afrikaners face persecution or are being targeted for murder.

Most victims of killings in South Africa are young black men in urban areas, according to official data.

"The crime that we have in South Africa affects everyone irrespective of race and gender," Lamola said.

'Beyond absurd'

Under eligibility guidelines published by the US embassy, applicants for US resettlement must either be of Afrikaner ethnicity or belong to a racial minority in South Africa.

They  must also "be able to articulate a past experience of persecution or fear of future persecution."

Trump and Musk have accused South Africa's government of targeting Afrikaners with a controversial land seizure law enacted this year.

On Monday, Trump threatened to not attend an upcoming G20 summit in South Africa unless the "situation is taken care of."

America's biggest trading partner in Africa is also under fire from Washington for leading a case at the International Court of Justice accusing US ally Israel of "genocidal" acts in its Gaza offensive, a claim Israel denies.

Many have expressed bemusement that whites could be assigned victim status in South Africa.

Prominent Afrikaner author Max du Preez said the resettlement was "beyond absurd."

"This is about Trump and MAGA, not about us. It's about their hatred for DEI," he told AFP, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion programs that have become a favorite Trump target.

"The people who have now fled have probably been motivated by financial considerations and/or an unwillingness to live in a post-apartheid society where whites no longer call the shots," he said.

Whites, who make up 7.3 percent of the population, generally enjoy a higher standard of living than the black majority. They still own two-thirds of farmland and on average earn three times as much as black South Africans.

Mainly Afrikaner-led governments imposed the race-based apartheid system that denied black people political and economic rights until it was voted out in 1994.

(Source: Saul Loeb with Clement Varanges in Johannesburg, AFP)