The group of Afrikaners arrived in the US on Monday after President Donald Trump granted them refugee status, saying they faced racial discrimination. But Ramaphosa said those who wanted to leave were not happy with efforts to address the inequities of the apartheid past, terming their relocation a "sad moment for them". "As South Africans, we are resilient. We don't run away from our problems. We must stay here and solve our problems. When you run away you are a coward, and that's a real cowardly act," he added.

Trump and his close ally, South Africa-born Elon Musk, have said there was a "genocide" of white farmers in South Africa - a claim that has been widely discredited. The US has also accused the South African government of seizing land from white farmers without paying compensation. More than 30 years after the end of decades of rule by South Africa's white minority, black farmers own only a small fraction of the country's best farmland, with the majority still in white hands, leading to anger over the slow pace of change. In January President Ramaphosa signed a controversial law allowing the government to seize privately owned land without compensation in certain circumstances, when it is deemed "equitable and in the public interest". (BBC)