NAMIBIA: German universities must return skulls

Namibia has called on Germany to return dozens of skulls stored in universities since the colonial era, reports Deutsche Welle. In a statement last week, Namibia's government said it wanted Germany "to pay for the repatriation of the remains and all related costs". The skulls are those of indigenous Ovaherero, also known as Herero, and Nama victims of the uprising of the tribes against German colonial rule between 1904 and 1908.

Thousands of indigenous people perished as a result of the extermination order of the chief of the German colonial armed forces or Schutztruppe, general Lothar von Trotha. Numerous prisoners of war died in concentration camps in Windhoek, Swakopmund and Luderitz. The German scientist Eugen Fischer had requested skulls of the dead for research to support his theory of the superiority of the European brain over that of the African.
Full report on the Deutsche Welle site