there were some 3,500 recorded farm attacks in South Africa, resulting in the murder of 541 farmers, their families or their workers, during only three years. On average more than two farm attack related murders are committed every week. The Freedom Front interprets this as racial violence targeting Afrikaners: In mid-2001 the Freedom Front appealed to the United Nations Human Rights Commission to place pressure on the South African government to do something about the murder of white South African farmers, which "had taken on the shape of an ethnic massacre". Freedom Front leader Pieter Mulder claimed that most farm attacks seemed orchestrated, and that the motive for the attacks was not only criminal; Mulder further claimed that "a definite anti-Boer climate had taken root in South Africa. People accused of murdering Boers and Afrikaners were often applauded by supporters during court appearances". The independent Committee of Inquiry into Farm Attacks, appointed by the National Commissioner of Police, published a report in 2003, however, indicating that European people were not targeted exclusively, that theft occurred in most attacks, and that the proportion of European victims had decreased in the four years preceding the report. The number of farm attacks is disputed. In 2010, several international news publications reported that over 3,000 white farmers had been murdered since 1994. However, the Afrikaner farmers' group Transvaal Agricultural Union stated that 1,544 people were killed in farm attacks from 1990 to 2012 Between 1994 and 2019 approximately 500,000 people were murdered in total in South Africa. Genocide Watch has theorised that farm attacks constitute early warning signs of genocide against white South Africans and it has criticised the South African government for its inaction on the issue, pointing out that the murder rate for them ("ethno-European farmers" in their report, which also included non-Afrikaner farmers of European race) is four times that of the general South African population. However, the South African government and other analysts dispute these figures, saying white South African farmers are not killed at a disproportionate rate. South African government data indicated between 54 and 74 murders on farms annually in the period 2015–2019, and 48-64 during 2010–2014; out of about 20,000 murders per year in South Africa. More black South Africans are killed than white South Africans in farm attacks, though white South Africans still make up a disproportionate number of those murdered on farms due to rural