Representatives of two indigenous groups in Namibia, the Herero and Nama peoples, have filed a class-action lawsuit against Germany in New York. They are seeking reparations for what former colonial power Germany acknowledges was genocide.

The plaintiffs are seeking reparations and the right to representation at talks between Germany and Namibia. Some 100,000 people are believed to have been killed when Germany crushed an uprising, beginning in 1904.

Namibia and Germany have been in talks about a joint declaration on the massacres that Germany recently admitted were genocide, but Herero and Nama descendants have been excluded from the talks.

Unlike with the victims of World War II atrocities, Germany has also refused to pay reparations to victims, saying it pays millions of dollars of development aid to the country instead.

The dispute relates to a period in the late 19th and early 20th Century, when Germany was the colonial power in Namibia, then called South West Africa.

Agencies