South Africa’s state prosecutor has officially withdrawn charges against one of the farm workers accused of killing two black woman and feeding their bodies to pigs.

Adrian de Wet was one of three men facing murder charges after Maria Makgato, 45, and Lucia Ndlovu, 34, were killed while allegedly looking for food on a pig farm near Polokwane in South Africa’s northern Limpopo province last year.

Their bodies were then alleged to have been given to the animals in an apparent attempt to dispose of the evidence.

Mr De Wet, 20, turned state witness when the trial started on Monday and says farm owner Zachariah Johannes Olivier shot and killed the two women.

Mr De Wet, a supervisor on the farm, will testify that he was under duress when he was forced to throw their bodies into the pig enclosure, according to both the prosecution and his lawyer.

William Musora, 50, another farm worker, is the third accused. He and Mr Olivier, 60, are yet to enter a plea and remain behind bars.

Mr De Wet’s lawyers say he has truthfully disclosed what transpired on the night Ms Makgato and Ms Ndlovu were killed in August 2024.

Shortly after court adjourned on Wednesday, he walked out of the court as a free man and was whisked away by his lawyers, while Ms Makgato’s brother Walter Makgato sobbed outside the court building.

He told the BBC that the release of one of the men allegedly involved in the killing of his sister means justice will not be served.

Mr De Wet will be taken into protective custody until the end of the trial.

The case has caused widespread outrage across South Africa which has exacerbated racial tension between black and white people in the country.

This is especially rife in rural areas of the country, despite the end of the racist system of apartheid 30 years ago.

Most private farmland remains in the hands of the white minority, while most farm workers are black and poorly paid, fuelling resentment among the black population, while many white farmers complain of high crime rates.

The trial is set to resume on 6 October.

Medical relief agency has treated more than 1,300 patients for gunshot wounds sustained near notorious GHF aid sites in Gaza.

Doctors Without Borders, better known by its French-language acronym MSF, has called for the immediate end to Israel’s militarised food distribution scheme in Gaza, which it described as “institutionalised starvation and dehumanisation”.

In a grim report released on Thursday, titled “This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing”, the medical nonprofit said that it operates clinics in Rafah, southern Gaza, near two GHF aid distribution sites under the control of the Israeli military and private US contractors.

Since those sites opened in May, they have become synonymous with “stampedes, suffocating crowd surges, violent looting and lethal ‘crowd control’ measures”, MSF said in its reports.

“The GHF distribution sites fall dangerously short of any recognised standard for safe and dignified humanitarian distributions,” the report said.

“Nowhere else in the world where MSF operates – including in the most volatile conflict zones – would this level of violence around an ‘aid distribution’ site be tolerated. This must stop now,” the organisation said.

MSF teams were “mentally prepared for responding to conflict – but not to civilians killed and maimed while seeking aid”, it said.

MSF’s primary care clinics have turned into mass casualty units since GHF took control of aid distribution in Gaza, it added.

Over a seven-week period in June and July, MSF received 1,380 injured people and 28 dead bodies at its two primary care clinics in Gaza’s al-Attar and al-Mawasi areas, which are close to two GHF distribution sites.

The patients included 174 suffering from gunshot wounds, among them women and children, the report said, but most patients were young men and teenage boys.

A significant number of patients from GHF sites in Khan Younis arrived with gunshot wounds to their lower limbs bearing a precision that “strongly suggests intentional targeting of people within the distribution sites, rather than accidental or indiscriminate fire”, MSF said.

The report noted that many patients had also sustained injuries from “crowd control” measures, including pepper spray and other kinds of physical assault.

Patients injured at GHF sites typically arrived covered in sand and dust “from time spent lying on the ground while taking cover from bullets”, the report adds.

“People are being shot like animals,” an MSF coordinator said in the report.

“They’re not armed. They’re not soldiers. They’re civilians carrying plastic bags, hoping to bring home some flour or pasta. And my question is: how high is the price they have to pay for one bag of food?”

US President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariffs on more than 90 countries around the world have come into effect.

“IT’S MIDNIGHT!!! BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TARIFFS ARE NOW FLOWING INTO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!,” Trump said on social media minutes before the deadline in Washington, DC.

Earlier, the president hit India with a 50% tariff, which will take effect on 27 August unless it stops buying Russian oil.

Trump also threatened a 100% tariff on foreign-made computer chips as he pushes tech firms to invest in the US. It came as Apple announced a new $100bn (£75bn) US investment after coming under pressure from the White House to move more production to America.

Last week, the Trump administration announced a revised list of import taxes on dozens of trading partners and extended a deadline for countries to reach agreements with the US to 7 August.

Countries have been racing to strike deals with Washington to lower – or scrap – what Trump calls “reciprocal tariffs”.

His trade policies are aimed at reshaping the global trading system, which he sees as treating the US unfairly.

Export-dependent economies in South East Asia were among the hardest-hit by the new tariffs.

Manufacturing-focused Laos and Myanmar faced some of the highest levies at 40%. Some experts said Trump appears to have targeted countries with close trade ties with China.

But the latest set of tariffs will offer countries some stability after months of chaos, said economist Bert Hofman from the National University of Singapore.

“This is supposed to be it. Now you can start to analyse the impact of the tariffs.”

Some major economies – including the UK, Japan and South Korea – have already reached agreements to get lower tariffs than Trump threatened in April.

The European Union has also struck a framework deal with Washington, in which Brussels has accepted a 15% tariff on goods from the trading bloc.

Taiwan, a key Washington ally in Asia, was handed a 20% tariff. Its president Lai Ching-te said the rate is “temporary” and that talks with the US are still underway.

Last week, Trump boosted the tariff rate on Canada from 25% to 35%, saying the country had “failed to cooperate” in curbing the flow of fentanyl and other drugs across the US border. The Canadian government says it is cracking down on drug gangs.

But most Canadian exports to the US will dodge the import tax due to an existing trade treaty, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Higher tariffs on Mexico were paused for another 90 days as negotiations continue to strike a trade deal.

On Wednesday, Trump said he would impose a 100% tariff on foreign-made semiconductors.

Major chipmakers that have made significant investments in the US appear to have dodged the new tariff. Government officials in Taiwan and South Korea have said in separate statements that TSMC, SK Hynix, and Samsung would be exempt from the new levy.

The White House did not immediately respond to a BBC request for clarification.

The BBC has also contacted SK Hynix and Samsung. TSMC declined to comment.

Also on Wednesday, Trump raised the total tariff on India to 50% as he pushes the world’s third largest importer of energy to stop buying oil from Russia.

New Delhi has called the move “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable” and vowed to protect its national interests.

The move marks a “sharp change” in Trump’s approach to Moscow that could spark concerns among other countries in talks with the US, said market analyst Farhan Badami from financial services firm eToro.

“There is the possibility here that India is only the first target that Trump intends to punish for maintaining trade relations with Russia.”

Brazil’s exports to the US also face a 50% tariff. Trump imposed the levy after accusing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of unfairly attacking US technology firms and calling the prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro for allegedly attempting a coup a “witch hunt”.

The US and China have held a series of talks as they tried to agree an extension to a 90-day tariffs pause that is due to expire on 12 August.