Shark Island Concentration Camp in Luderitz Bay in Namibia
In 1884, Germans invaded what is now present-day Namibia in Southern Africa to obstruct the British who were planning to expand their territories into Namibia. The Herero and Nama tribes were the two indigenous people of Namibia who owned the lands and were prosperous cattlemen and farmers. Before the German invasion, they lived in sophisticated and well developed social settings, but between 1884 and 1903, they helplessly watched on as the Germans took over the lands and properties, killed their labour force and shipped them away into slavery. In January 1904, the outraged Herero and Nama tribesmen were armed with local weapons and rifles and attacked the Germans. But the German army was no match for them and the Germans won the battle, killing about 30,000 Hereros and 10,000 Namas.
In 1905, the Germans officially created the Shark Island Concentration Camp in Luderitz Bay where they dumped captives and the remains of the dead locals in the early 1900s. The island is located along the coast and had very harsh and cold weather conditions which were not favourable for habitation. The captives were left to their fate. Many of them died of hunger, cold or disease that was from the rot of the dead bodies. Prisoners and captives that survived were used as forced labour to construct the Otavi railway until they died. Women and children were raped and forced to remove flesh from the heads of the dead and clean them before they were shipped off to Germany for research in several institutions.
