Bloemfontein - Two people were arrested on Monday for the murder of an elderly couple on Kwaagakraal farm near Bainsvlei, Bloemfontein, Free State police said.
The bodies of the couple, aged 70 and 72, were dumped near the farm at Waaikraal, Captain Harry Nagel said.
“The couple had been shot and killed during a robbery in which a television set, firearms and vehicle were taken.”
Nagel said they arrested the two suspects, aged 20 and 25, after receiving a tip-off about a suspicious vehicle in the area. The pair then showed the police where the bodies were.
A third suspect, aged 19, was later arrested at Kelly's View. He was in possession of the stolen television set and firearm.
The trio would appear in the Bloemfontein Magistrate's Court on charges of murder and robbery soon, Nagel said.
In a separate incident, the body of a 68-year-old woman was found inside a burnt house at Erfbloem farm near Theunissen.
“Four firearms are missing from the safe. The victim's Toyota Hilux was found burnt in the vicinity of the farm,” Nagel said.
A post mortem would be conducted to determine the cause of her death.
AfriForum said the latest killings brought the number of farm murders in the country to seven since the start of the year.
“This is more than one farm murder every two days. If this trend is any indication of the rate of farm murders in 2015, it means that there will be more than 200 farm murders,” AfriForum deputy CEO Ernst Roets said in a statement.
He said that over the weekend President Jacob Zuma during the African National Congress's 103rd anniversary had made an appeal to farmers to improve the living conditions of farmworkers.
“Yet, not a word is being said about the thousands of farmers who have been killed in recent years,” Roets said.
Sapa