Following a successful repatriation of remains of two Namibian liberation heroes, who died at the then notorious Robben Island Prison, has inspired South Africa to perform a similar programme.    

The mortal remains of Festus Nehale and Simon Petrus Niilenge arrived in the country alongside the eighty-four ancestral remains in a development described as a historic act of restoration, dignity and national healing.   

On August 24, Nehale and Niilenge were reburied at the Heroes Acre in a state-sponsored reburial ceremony marking the Heroes' Day celebrations and 60 years since the start of the country's struggle for political emancipation.

The development has since inspired South Africa to launch a five-year repatriation programme aimed at locating and repatriating the remains of South Africans who died in exile during the liberation struggle.

Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, made this revelation when addressing journalists in Cape Town, South Africa, while briefing the media on the outcomes of the cabinet meeting last Friday.    

"The South African cabinet noted that Angola has the largest concentration of South Africans who died in exile, with more than 400 possible grave sites identified. The cabinet welcomed the repatriation of the 86 Namibians, including liberation heroes in Festus Nehale and Petrus Niilenge, who died in detention after being in prison on Robben Island. Cabinet welcomes the repatriation as an important act of restorative justice that honours liberation heroes and provides closure to their descendants."

For more than a century, the remains of dozens of Namibians were held in South African museum collections, removed from their communities during the colonial era and subjected to practices that sought to classify indigenous people through the distorted lens of racial science.

The remains represent several Namibian communities, including the Aawambo, Ovaherero, Ovahimba, Nama, Damara and San, and repatriation also included body casts, grave goods and cultural materials such as beads, ostrich eggs and jewellery.