Convoys of hundreds of slow moving trucks and cars brought traffic to a crawl on highways leading from farming areas to Cape Town, Pretoria and Johannesburg and white farmers and their supporters wore black in memory of farmers killed. The protests have been peaceful and the South African police have accompanied the demonstrators.

The protests are backed by AfriForum, a lobby group which promotes the rights of South Africa’s white minority, especially the Afrikaner population descended from Dutch settlers. AfriForum claims that 70 white farmers have been murdered in 341 attacks on farms so far this year.

The rate of murders of white farmers is much higher than South Africa’s general murder rate, said Ian Cameron, AfriForum’s head of community safety, speaking at the Afrikaners’ Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria where hundreds of protesters gathered.

“A farmer has 4.5 times more chance of being murdered in South Africa, than an average South African,” said Cameron, according to the African News Agency. “That means a farmer is three times more likely to be murdered in South Africa than a police officer in this country. So farmers have by far the most dangerous job of all people in this country, at the moment. We cannot allow this to continue the way it is.”

Vehicles blockade a freeway between Johannesburg and Vereeniging, South Africa, in protest against the recent murder of farmers, Monday, Oct 30 2017. Traffic was bought to a standstill on highways leading from farming areas to Cape Town, Pretoria and Johannesburg, as white farmers protest in what they call the Black Monday protest against the high rate of murders of farmer workers. (Themba Hadebe/Associated Press)