Hi, I'm Andrew Harding, and this is the documentary from the BBC World Service.

Today, Bloodlands, a true crime story set in a small farming town in South Africa.

It's a murky tale about race and revenge riddled with twists and betrayals. The old man is driving fast like they all do out here. He's trying to get home

before dusk jubtering along a dirt track between parched cornfields. Not scared but on alert. That's just the way things are these days

out in the vast flatlands of South Africa.

My father-in-law lived alone. Africa.

My father-in-law lived alone. Everybody knew it. Although his place was very safe. He is stuck to his

routine every day. The man in the car is Ludi van der Vesthazen, a prominent white farmer, 74 widower commutcheon.

He reaches his farmhouse at around 5 p.m.

He has no idea that his life and the fate of an entire community are about to change forever.

So old Ludi has this big metal fence with razor wire here all the way around his property. He drives in

through the gate, he parks his car, he starts feeding his dogs on the grass

next to his house here. three beautiful slender greyhounds.

And while he's doing that, he glances round and he sees two men and they're walking towards him.

I'm sure they knew that my father-in-law had cash it needs safe

when they attacked him. There's some sort of scuffle outside the house here, but old Ludi manages to open the door,

get into the house, and then there's a chase.

What happens over the course of the next two hours is not just brutal. You could call it a frenzy.

Patient is fully unconscious.

I could feel a crack in the bow,

stretching from frontal to around about where the ear starts.

Welcome to the documentary on the BBC World Service. This is Bloodlands, a story about rage, race and betrayal and including some scenes of extreme violence.

...