Festus Nehale and Simon Niilenge are to be reburied on Wednesday at Namibia’s Heroes’ Acre during ceremonies marking Heroes Day, which this year marks 60 years since the start of the country’s struggle for independence.
Nehale and Niilenge fought to free Namibia from the occupation of South Africa’s apartheid regime. Nehale died in 1971 and Niilenge in 1974, and both were buried in Cape Town.
Their remains were repatriated to Namibia last week along with those of 84 Indigenous people that had been held in the collections of the Iziko Museums in South Africa. They were collected during the colonial period, when the study of human remains was used in attempts to establish a supposed racial hierarchy.
“It is an act of restorative justice, dignity and healing, giving families and communities the opportunity to honour their ancestors on their own soil,” South Africa’s Minister of Culture Gayton McKenzie said at the ceremony in Cape Town on 19 August, when the remains were officially handed back.
Germany offers to return 1,000 human skulls to former east African colonies
The number of remains to be repatriated could increase as identification and verification continues.
The handover last week also included items from graves and body casts, including beads, ostrich eggs and jewellery.
Sanet Steenkamp, Namibia’s Minister of Education, Arts and Culture said the remains are of people who left Namibia “as a subject, each one of them, of a colonial order”.
“However, with their return to Namibia, they are now citizens of a free and sovereign republic.”
Namibia has been calling for several years for the return of human remains held abroad. Germany returned remains taken during the colonial period, in 2011, 2014 and 2018.
This article has been partially adapted from this report in French by Claire Bargelès, RFI’s correspondent in Johannesburg.
