Genocide victims' remains back in Namibia after German handover

Windhoek - The remains of 27 people murdered during Germany's

colonial rule of present-day Namibia have arrived back in the

country, two days after an official handover ceremony in Berlin.

"I stand here ashamed, knowing that this constituted

genocide," Michelle Muentefering, a senior official in the German

Foreign Ministry, said in the Namibian capital Windhoek on Friday,

asking for forgiveness "from the bottom of my heart."

"I cannot undo the work of our ancestors," she added, speaking of the

mass killing of members of the Herero and Nama tribes in what was

then German South West Africa.

Tens of thousands of indigenous people were massacred during a series

of protests against colonial rule between 1904 and 1908 or died from

hunger and exposure in prison camps.

The paramount chief of the Hereros, Vekuii Rukoro, repeated his

demand at the ceremony in Windhoek for the German government to

officially apologise for the atrocities

Speaking of the returned remains, he said, "After 114 years, we say

welcome back home but let the battle for restorative justice

continue."

At Wednesday's ceremony, the German government returned 19 skulls as

well as bones and skin to a Namibian delegation. They are to be put

on display at a museum in the African country.

The German government first recognised the killings as genocide in

2015. Germany has never formally apologised for the massacres or

offered direct reparations.

Members of the Herero and Nama ethnic groups are currently fighting a

class action lawsuit in a US court demanding reparations.

Namibia was a German colony between 1884 and 1915.

dpa