S. Africa Deputy President calls for repatriation of colonial-era human remains

(MENAFN) According to reports, South African Deputy President Paul Mashatile has urged the return of human remains and cultural artifacts taken from the country during colonial and apartheid periods. Speaking at Heritage Day celebrations, Mashatile highlighted the historical loss of sacred items and the need to restore dignity to the nation’s ancestors.

He explained that many traditional and Khoisan leaders were killed in resistance wars, with their remains removed from South Africa. “To this day, some of these sacred human remains of our worthy ancestors remain locked away as prisoners of ‘science’ in museum cupboards across the world, still awaiting their rightful repatriation,” he said, referencing the 2002 return of Sarah Baartman’s remains from France as a landmark moment. Baartman, a Khoisan woman displayed in Europe during the 19th century, has become a symbol of restored dignity and national remembrance.

Mashatile added that authorities are actively identifying museums and institutions still holding South African cultural property to initiate formal repatriation efforts. “This is a call to decolonize our museums, to Africanize them through a people-centered process of knowledge production and co-curation for a new era, a post-colonial era,” he stated.

Heritage Day, celebrated annually on September 24, honors South Africa’s cultural and linguistic diversity as well as its traditional leaders. The repatriation of human remains taken from Africa during colonial rule has become an increasingly urgent issue across the continent. In August, France returned three human skulls from Madagascar, kept for over a century in a Paris museum, one of which is believed to belong to Malagasy King Toera.

MENAFN25092025000045017281ID1110110783