ALGIERS, Algeria – Friday, July 3, 2020,/ https://africanpostonline.com/ Algeria in a memorable and emotional ceremony receives the skulls of 24 Algerians decapitated for fighting French colonialist. They were decapitated and their heads sent to France as trophies. The skulls of 24 Algerians were on display in the French museum.
The ceremony took place on Friday 3rd July 2020 led by the Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. The skulls of the colonial fighters placed in a coffin were wrapped in Algerian Flags.
Boats in the ports of Algier blew their horns and a 21-gun salute at the Houari Boumediene Airport also known as Algiers International Airport welcome the colonial fighters flown into Algeria on a Hercules C-130 transport plane and escorted on arrival by Algerian fighter jets.
Among the remains were Sheikh Bouzian captured in 1849, shot and decapitated, Mohammed Lamjad ben Abdelmalek, also known as, “Cherif Boubaghla” (the man with the mule).
France is returning the remains of 24 members of Algeria’s resistance movement who were killed in the 19th century. One of the leaders whose remains are to be returned is Sheikh Bouzian, who was captured in 1849 by the French, shot and decapitated. © Ali Farid Belkadi
Algerian army chief Said Chengiha stated, “The valiant resistance fighters who refused the colonization of their country by imperial France were displayed immorally for decades, like vulgar objects of antiquity, without respect for their dignity, their memory. That is the monstrous face of colonization,” He also delivered a speech condemning colonialism as “despicable as they prayed for the 24 colonial fighters.
The President stated that the colonial fighters were denied their natural and human rights for not being buried for more than 170 years. “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 said.
Ali Farid Belkadi, an Algerian researcher and historian, informed the Algerian authorities in 2011 on discovering the skulls at the Museum of Man in Paris and the first to campaign for their return in 2011. Algerian have long battled for the return of the skulls and an official request was made by the then President of Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
A special burial will be held on Sunday after a public display at the Palace of Culture on Saturday.
France spent 132 years of colonial rule in Algeria and has many of their properties in their possessions. According to Algerians, this is only part of their possessions recovered from France, and they will ensure France return all.
Source: Renate Dzodzomenyo -African Post Online
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Renate is a lawyer, publicist, and writer. She believes that education and information is the key to developing and shaping Africa. In her free time, she paints beautiful art pieces on canvas. Renate believes that life is a perception, and you live it the way you perceive it.
