Five arrested after South African farmer shot and tortured in farm attack

South African police have arrested five people in connection with a brutal attack on a cattle farmer who was shot, stabbed and mutilated during a house robbery in the North West province. Donovan Marx, 50, was ambushed as he returned home to his farm near the small town of Ventersdorp last Wednesday. Police said he was shot in the upper body, stabbed and had his ears cut off in what officials have described as a senseless and barbaric act. According to a police statement, a group of masked men armed with guns approached a worker at the property as he mowed the lawn and demanded to know where Marx was. The worker's hands and feet were bound with cable ties. When Marx arrived home, two of the suspects allegedly shot him before dragging him inside the house, tying him up and stabbing him. The attackers ransacked the house and took three firearms from a safe before fleeing in Marx's van. The ordeal came to an end after the farm worker managed to free himself and call for assistance. Marx was rushed to hospital, where he remains, and may require prosthetic ears after surgeons were unable to save his own, according to local news site IOL. All five alleged attackers were arrested over the weekend. Marx's wife and family welcomed the swift arrests and said the legal process must now take its course. The suspects, aged between 26 and 56, are due to appear in local courts on Tuesday facing charges of house robbery, attempted murder and illegal possession of firearms and ammunition. South Africa's Agriculture Minister Willie Aucamp condemned the attack, saying there was no place in the country for such senseless and barbaric acts. Ian Cameron, chair of parliament's police committee, praised the rapid arrests and called for a strong, properly investigated case to follow. The attack has caused widespread outrage in a country accustomed to high levels of violence. Some right-wing groups have used attacks on white farmers, who are often from the Afrikaner community, to claim there is a genocide against white people in South Africa. That claim has been widely discredited and dismissed by every political party in the country, including those representing Afrikaners, although US President Donald Trump has repeated it and offered white Afrikaners asylum in the United States. South Africa's latest crime statistics, covering April to June 2026, do not specify how many attacks took place on farms and recorded only one robbery in a rural area. Police data show that most victims of crime in South Africa, including on farms, are black.