\n Algeria on Friday received the skulls of 24 resistance fighters decapitated during colonial France's conquest of the North African country that had been lying in storage in a Paris museum.\n<\/p>\n
\n The return of the remains, viewed as war trophies by French colonial officers, comes amid a worldwide reexamination of the legacy of colonialism since the May 25 killing of 46-year-old African American George Floyd by a white police officer in the United States.\n<\/p>\n
\n UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has urged countries to make amends for \"centuries of violence and discrimination\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The skulls were flown into Algiers airport from France on a Hercules C-130 transport plane, escorted on arrival by Algerian fighter jets, an AFP correspondent said.\n<\/p>\n
\n To a 21-gun salute, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and a military guard of honour gave the war \"heroes\" an official welcome.\n<\/p>\n
\n The remains, in coffin draped with the Algerian flag, were brought out of the aircraft and carried shoulder high by soldiers as a military band played a funeral march.\n<\/p>\n
\n Tebboune bowed in front of each coffin and a Muslim cleric recited a prayer for the dead.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The city is incredibly silent as the sirens of boats echo across the port of Algiers,\" in tribute to the resistance fighters, an Algerian tweeted.\n<\/p>\n
\n The coffins will be taken to the Palace of Culture in Algiers where they will be on display Saturday for the public to pay their respects.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Sunday, Algeria's 58th anniversary of independence, the skulls will finally be laid to rest in the martyrs' section of the capital's El Alia cemetery, local media reported.\n<\/p>\n
\n France's 132 years of colonial rule, and the brutal eight-year war that ended it, have left a lasting legacy of often prickly relations between the two governments and peoples.\n<\/p>\n
\n The French presidency, in a statement to AFP, said the return of the remains was a gesture of \"friendship\" as part of efforts to \"reconcile the memories of the French and Algerian people\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Announcing the repatriations on Thursday, Tebboune said the decapitated fighters \"had been deprived of their natural and human right to be buried for more than 170 years\".\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Heroes' -\n<\/p>\n
\n He paid tribute to them as \"heroes who confronted the brutal French occupation between 1838 and 1865\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The savage enemy decapitated them in reprisals before transferring their skulls overseas so that their graves would not become a symbol of the resistance,\" Tebboune added.\n<\/p>\n
\n One of the leaders whose remains were returned is Sheikh Bouzian, a revolt leader who was captured in 1849 by the French, shot and decapitated.\n<\/p>\n
\n The skull of prominent resistance leader Mohammed Lamjad ben Abdelmalek, also known as \"Cherif Boubaghla\" (or the man with the mule), was also among those to be returned.\n<\/p>\n
\n Historian Malika Rahal welcomed the news.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The martyrs are returning home,\" she said in a tweet.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The body parts of those who fought the conquest of their country are returning home after a very long stay in cardboard boxes at the Musee de l'Homme in Paris.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Emmanuel Macron, the first French president to be born after the 1954-62 independence war in which 1.5 million Algerian died, made his first official visit to the country in December 2017, saying he came as a \"friend\".\n<\/p>\n
\n At the time, he told news website Tout sur l'Algerie that he was \"ready\" to see his country hand back the skulls.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Cardboard boxes' -\n<\/p>\n
\n Algeria had officially asked for their return in 2018, as well as requesting the handover of colonial archives.\n<\/p>\n
\n Algerian and French academics have long campaigned for the return of the skulls.\n<\/p>\n
\n Algerian historian Ali-Farid Belkadi was the first to call for their return in 2011 after undertaking research work at the Musee de l'Homme.\n<\/p>\n
\n At the time, he said the skulls were kept in \"vulgar cardboard boxes that resemble shoe boxes\".\n<\/p>\n
\n In December 2019, Macron said that \"colonialism was a grave mistake\" and called for turning the page on the past.\n<\/p>\n
\n During his presidential election campaign, he had created a storm by calling France's colonisation of Algeria a \"crime against humanity\".<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Algeria on Friday received the skulls of 24 resistance fighters decapitated during colonial France's conquest of the North African country that had been lying in storage in a Paris museum. The return of the remains, viewed as war trophies by French colonial officers, comes amid a worldwide reexamination of the legacy of colonialism since the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-44790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n