Namibia marks inaugural Genocide Remembrance Day with call for reparations | Genocide News [Video]

Namibia has held its first Genocide Remembrance Day to commemorate tens of thousands of Herero and Nama people killed by German colonisers in the early 1900s, in what is widely considered the first genocide of the 20th century.

The southern African country’s president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, speaking at the event Wednesday, called again for reparations for the at least 70,000 Indigenous people killed by German troops from 1904 to 1908.

Germany, which colonised Namibia from 1884 to 1915, previously acknowledged the genocide in 2021, but talks on reparations stretching back to 2013 have been fruitless.

“We should find a degree of comfort in the fact that the German government has agreed that the German troops committed a genocide against the … people of our land,” Nandi-Ndaitwah said at the ceremony held in the gardens of Namibia’s parliament.

“We must remain committed that as a nation, we shall soldier on until the ultimate conclusion is reached,” she said.

For its part, …