ANTANANARIVO: Madagascar ceremonially received three colonial-era skulls from France on Tuesday, 128 years after they were taken from the Indian Ocean nation, including one believed to be that of a Malagasy king beheaded by French troops.
Public pressure has grown in recent years for former colonial powers such as France and Britain to return artefacts taken from Africa and Asia.
The skulls, presumed to belong to King Toera and two others from the Sakalava ethnic group, were formally handed over to Madagascar at a ceremony held at the French culture ministry in late August.
A military guard of honor raised swords as three men in traditional dress carried the skulls, draped in red cloth, out of the plane that landed in Antananarivo late on Monday.
The skulls were welcomed with a ceremony on Tuesday attended by President Andry Rajoelina at the Mausoleum of Antananarivo, the resting place of Malagasy national heroes.
A police officer, a soldier and a gendarme carried the skulls into the mausoleum, where Rajoelina, wearing a traditional “Lamba Landy” textile draped over a black suit, inspected a guard of honor.
“We are here to pay tribute and honor the heroes and those who fought for the homeland 128 years ago under the leadership of King Toera and his soldiers,” Rajoelina said.
The king’s skull will now be taken to Ambiky, in the Menabe region, where he was killed in 1897, the ministry of communication and culture said, with several stops en route to accommodate ceremonies to mark the occasion.
Descendants and historians say the return of Toera’s skull carries both political and cultural significance and will allow the Sakalava people to carry out the Fitampoha, a traditional ritual of purification and blessing that requires the presence of ancestral royal relics.
“Toera is not only the king of the Sakalava, he is also a martyr of independence,” Piero Kamamy, a descendant of the monarch, told Reuters.
According to Malagasy historians, Toera’s attempt to forge alliances symbolized a rare moment of unity between different Malagasy groups against colonial forces.
His capture and beheading in 1897 were part of a broader French strategy to crush resistance through psychological intimidation, said Jeannot Rasoloarison, a historian at the University of Antananarivo.
“The Sakalava can now grieve with the return of the king’s remains and can constitute his relics.”
Madagascar receives three colonial-era human skulls from France
https://arab.news/2j6c7
Madagascar receives three colonial-era human skulls from France
- Public pressure has grown in recent years for former colonial powers such as France and Britain to return artefacts taken from Africa and Asia
Islamist militants show ‘unprecedented coordination’ in Burkina Faso attacks
- The assaults were on several towns in the north and east including Bilanga, Titao, Tandjari and Nare
- The operations targeted military detachments, civilian convoys and market areas
DAKAR: Islamist militants have killed dozens of soldiers and civilians and overrun an army detachment over the past week in coordinated attacks across multiple regions of Burkina Faso, according to internal reports by two diplomatic missions reviewed by Reuters.
The operations by Al Qaeda–linked Jama’at Nusrat Al-Islam wal-Muslimin show the JNIM is increasingly able to mobilize across large swathes of territory at one time, said the reports, which described a list of locations and places that came under assault.
Burkina Faso’s military rulers seized power in a coup in 2022, promising to improve security. But militants’ attacks have increased in the West African country as state forces battle an insurgency that has spread across the Sahel from Mali.
The assaults were on several towns in the north and east including Bilanga, Titao, Tandjari and Nare, the diplomatic reports said. One also described an assault in the eastern city of Fada N’Gourma and flagged another in the northern Ouahigouya area.
“These attacks, which were almost simultaneous and spread across several provinces, demonstrate unprecedented coordination between militants and the junta’s inability to contain the assaults,” said one of the internal reports, which put the death toll at more than 180.
The other gave no toll but said the incidents appeared coordinated and involved several hundred militants serving JNIM and possibly Daesh affiliates.
The operations targeted military detachments, civilian convoys and market areas, it said.
JNIM has said it killed scores of troops from the Burkinabe army in attacks in the past week, US-based SITE Intelligence Group said on Monday.
Burkina authorities did not respond to a request for comment on the assaults or casualty reports.
INJURED GHANAIANS RETURN HOME
In the northern town of Titao, militants attacked an army base and set a market on fire, the internal reports said.
Nearly 80 soldiers and pro-government militia members were killed, one said. The other said about 10 civilians were killed there.
The dead civilians included eight tomato traders, Ghana’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
SITE quoted a media unit for JNIM as saying the insurgents had seized military vehicles, guns and other possessions in the assaults. More than a decade of insurgencies in the Sahel has displaced millions and engendered economic collapse, with violence pushing further south toward West Africa’s coast.
JNIM claimed nearly 500 attacks in Burkina Faso in 2025 and nearly 300 in Mali, SITE’s director, Rita Katz, said in a social media post on LinkedIn.
