12 years on, liberation heroes finally come home

The repatriation of liberation struggle veterans Simon Petrus Niilenge and Festus Nehale took more than a decade of research, diplomatic engagement, family consultations, cultural rituals and forensic work before their remains could finally be returned from South Africa. Government now faces calls to continue tracing other Namibians who died in exile and whose burial sites remain unknown.

On Monday, during the returnees' reburial at Heroes' Acre, President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said the process began in 2014 and was completed this year after cooperation between the Namibian and South African governments.

The repatriation efforts eventually brought together government officials, traditional leaders, relatives, former political prisoners, heritage and cultural practitioners, historians, archaeologists and technical experts, while the Namibian Defence Force provided the aircraft that transported the remains home.

Nandi-Ndaitwah said the delegation that travelled to South Africa this year was led by education and culture minister Sanet Steenkamp and included government officials, traditional leaders and relatives of Niilenge and Nehale.

She also thanked the Namibian Air Force crew and South African authorities for facilitating the operation.

12 years in the making

Momentum picked up this year when a Namibian delegation travelled to Cape Town on 9 July to prepare for the exhumations and repatriation.

Before the graves could be opened, customary rituals and verification processes were conducted at the Iziko Museums and at the cemeteries where the two former Robben Island prisoners had been buried.

Niilenge's grave was visited at Gugulethu Cemetery, while similar rituals were conducted at Maitland Cemetery, where Nehale had been buried. Government said the rituals formed part of cultural and legal protocols that had to be completed before the remains could formally be received, exhumed and transported.

Forensic teams subsequently exhumed the remains on 13 August, after which verification, preparation and handover processes continued ahead of their return to Namibia.

Even at the final stage, the operation encountered administrative difficulties. The NDF aircraft scheduled to return the remains on 20 August could not depart Cape Town because of paperwork delays, pushing the flight back by a day.

Niilenge and Nehale eventually arrived at Hosea Kutako International Airport on 21 August together with 84 ancestral human remains that had been held at the Iziko Museums before the two liberation veterans were reburied at Heroes' Acre on Monday.

Identification process

The 84 ancestral remains present another phase of the process. Unlike Niilenge and Nehale, whose final burial place had already been determined, government has said it will consult with traditional authorities before deciding where and how the ancestral remains should eventually be laid to rest.

They will remain in the care of the state while consultations and historical identification processes continue.

No figure for the total cost of the 2026 repatriation mission, including the delegations, forensic work, exhumations, ceremonies and NDF air transport, has been publicly disclosed in the material reviewed by Namibian Sun.

Funding, however, appears to have been an obstacle during the 12-year endeavour.

Earlier research into the whereabouts of Namibian political prisoners who died in South Africa found the graves of Nehale and Niilenge, but researchers reported that a shortage of funds prevented them from extending searches to other cemeteries in South Africa, including Pretoria, where other Namibians could possibly lie buried.

A mystery still to solve

The completion of the Niilenge and Nehale repatriations therefore does not close the wider search.

Two liberation struggle figures honoured at Heroes' Acre on Monday, Brendan Simbwaye and Tobias Hainyeko, were given symbolic graves because their remains are still unaccounted for.

The Hainyeko family said searches had already involved several trips to the Zambezi region and appealed to government to continue working with South Africa in an effort to determine whether his remains could still be located.

The family said it viewed the current repatriation as only a first phase and wanted the search to continue.

South African defence and military veterans minister Angie Motshekga responded to the concerns by saying she would convey the families' message. She suggested that existing missing-persons and truth-and-reconciliation mechanisms could continue investigating unresolved cases.

She warned that time was becoming an additional challenge because people who may know what happened to missing liberation figures were growing old and dying, potentially taking information with them.

Nandi-Ndaitwah also acknowledged that locating the missing would not be easy.

She said the government and other institutions should continue trying to trace Simbwaye and Hainyeko but cautioned that conflicts leave complicated records and that some disappearances may take years to resolve.

“In the war situation, things are not easy,” she said, pointing out that families around the world are still attempting to establish what happened to people missing since earlier conflicts.

The process that finally brought Niilenge and Nehale home shows that locating and repatriating them can require years of historical research, diplomatic negotiations, verification, family consent, traditional rituals, forensic exhumation and cross-border administrative approvals before a casket can begin its journey home.