S. Africa Reburies Remains of Indigenous Victims of Colonial “Science”

(MENAFN) The remains of 63 Khoisan people, exhumed and displayed in Europe during the colonial era under the guise of scientific study, have been reinterred in South Africa. President Cyril Ramaphosa called the ceremony a long-overdue gesture of dignity and restitution.

The reburial occurred at the Kinderle memorial site in Steinkopf, Northern Cape, a location historically linked to the 1867 massacre of 32 Nama children while their parents were attending church.

Addressing attendees, Ramaphosa said the ceremony aimed to restore humanity to victims whose communities had been stripped of “their names, their culture, and their very humanity.” He noted that during the 18th and 19th centuries, many indigenous people were forcibly taken to Europe as part of “a dark period of scientific racism,” where their physical traits made them subjects for study, exhibition, and exploitation.

“Not even death would spare them from indignity,” the president added, explaining that their remains were removed from graves and sold to museums and medical institutions abroad.

The Khoi, San, Nama, and related groups, among the earliest inhabitants of southern Africa, were also some of the first to experience dispossession and violence during European colonial expansion from the 17th century onward.

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