Namibia holds its first genocide remembrance day to mark mass killings by colonial ruler Germany

By Sonja Smith

Namibia marked the mass killings of Indigenous people in the early 20th century by former colonial ruler Germany with its first genocide remembrance day on Wednesday.

The day was declared a national holiday last year by the government and was commemorated for the first time with a ceremony in the gardens of the national Parliament in the capital, Windhoek.

Between 1904 and 1908, tens of thousands of Herero and Nama people were massacred or forced into concentration camps and starved by German colonial forces under the command of Gen. Lothar von Trotha, in what was then German South West Africa.

Germany formally recognized the atrocities as a genocide in 2021 and agreed to pay Namibia 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) over the course of 30 years to fund various projects. Namibia has rejected that and is pushing for more money and formal reparations for the massacres.

“Many people from the two communities