The 23 artifacts will be handed over to the National Museum of Namibia on Friday, where they can be studied by local artists and researchers, the Berlin museum said at a press conference.

Chosen by Namibian experts, they include a vessel adorned with three heads, a doll wearing a traditional dress, various hair accessories and spears.

This is a step in the process of reassessing "the long and complex history between Namibia and Germany", judged Esther Moombolah, director of the National Museum of Namibia during this conference.

"We call on all our future partners to follow the example of this institution," she added, saying that Namibians "should not have to fly to see our cultural treasures (...)" preserved. by museums abroad.

The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK), which oversees Berlin's museums, did not explain why these objects were not simply returned, its president Hermann Parzinger simply saying that the loan was "the way that had been decided ".

Ancient objects from Namibia on display at the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, during a press conference, May 24, 2022 Tobias SCHWARZ AFP

"Items that should be in Namibia will stay there," he said.

The Ethnological Museum has been working since 2019 with the Namibian Museum to determine the fate of hundreds of pieces from this South African country in its collections.

This initiative is part of a series of recent measures taken by Germany to try to confront the crimes of the colonial period, such as the official recognition last year of the genocide it perpetrated in Namibia.

Although less extensive than those of France and Britain, the German colonial empire encompassed parts of several African countries, including Namibia, Cameroon and Togo.

In Namibia, Germany was responsible for the massacres of the indigenous Herero and Nama peoples, which many historians consider to be the first genocide of the 20th century.

The Ethnological Museum of Berlin also concluded an agreement last year with Nigeria on the return from 2022 of the Benin Bronzes, jewels of its collection.

Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, and Esther Moombolah, director of the National Museum of Namibia, during a press conference at the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, May 24, 2022 Tobias SCHWARZ AFP

These metal plates and the sculptures made from the 16th to the 18th century once decorated the palace of the kingdom of Benin, now Nigeria.

© 2022 AFP