Germany has handed back the human remains of indigenous people killed during a genocide in colonial rule, seized from Namibia more than 100 years ago, on Wednesday.
A Namibian government delegation received the skulls at a church service in the capital, Berlin. Tens of thousands of Herero and Nama people were murdered in response to an anti-colonial uprising.
The extermination order was issued in October 1904 by Lothar Von Trotha, the head of Military Administration in the then German South West Africa. The genocide began in 1904 after a Herero and Nama rebellion in response to the German expropriation of their land and cattle.
The Herero and Nama were forced into the desert and any who were found trying to return to their land were either killed or put into concentration camps.
There is no agreed figure of how many died but some estimates have put it as high as 100,000. It is thought that 75% of the Herero population and half of the Nama population died.
The skulls of some of the victims were sent to Germany where racial anthropologists studied them as part of an attempt to justify a theory about the superiority of Europeans.
More than 25 remains were handed back, thought to be out hundreds of Namibian skulls in Germany on Wednesday.
Herero chief Vekuii Rukoro, whose ancestors were among the tens of thousands of Herero and Nama people massacred between 1904 and 1908, said the handover ceremony should have taken place not in a Berlin church, but a German government building.
He also accused Berlin of taking too long to formally apologize for what is often called the first genocide of the 20th century.
“By trying not to acknowledge the past, the German government will continue to make serious mistakes as regards present and future policies,” Rukoro told the church audience, which included government officials from both countries.
“We are after all the direct descendants of these remains and we should not be ignored.”
Skulls from Germany's other African colonies, including modern day Cameroon, Tanzania, Rwanda and Togo, were also used in the discredited studies.
In 2016, Germany said it was prepared to apologise in principle but it is still negotiating with the Namibian government over the form of the apology and how to deal with the legacy of the genocide.
Some of them have launched a class-action lawsuit against Germany in New York , hoping to get reparations.
Germany has argued that it has given Namibia millions of dollars in development aid to support all people in the country.
Wednesday's ceremony is the third time that remains have been handed back to Namibia, but it was hoped that this time it would be part of a true reconciliation process, reports the BBC's Johannes Dell.
But descendants of the victims are angry that there has been no apology and no agreement of reparations. They are also unhappy that they are not part of the negotiations.
"Our two governments... are still negotiating on an appropriate text for an apology. That's a big joke. These guys are just playing when Rome is burning," Herero paramount chief Vekuii Rukoro told the service in Berlin.
The skulls will now be taken to Namibia where they will be housed in the national museum until it is decided where they will be buried.
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