Government spokesperson and information and communication technology minister Emma Theofelus confirmed that 28 May will now be Genocide Remembrance Day, and it will be considered a public holiday effective from 2025.
The Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture, in consultation with stakeholders, will find a suitable location for the erection of a genocide monument.
The move has been hailed by former law maker Usutuaije Maamberua, who tabled a motion for a national genocide rememberance day in 2016.
“Namibia is a unitary state based on the rule of law. Therefore, a day like that day must be observed through state organs,” he said shortly after the minister’s announcement.
In his 2016 motion, Maamberua’s reasoning was that it was on this day that the commander of the colonial German Schutztruppe ordered the formal closure of all Ovaherero and Nama concentration camps in then German South West Africa.
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