Algeria buries two dozen resistance fighters after skulls returned from France

Veterans minister says fighters had spent ‘a century and a half in post-mortem exile'

A woman mourns over one of the coffins containing the remains of 24 Algerian resistance fighters (EPA/STRINGER)

Algeria has buried the remains of two dozen fighters – decapitated for resisting French colonial forces in the 19th century – days after their skulls were returned to the country.

The ceremony on Sunday was rich with symbolism marking the country’s 58th anniversary of independence.

The fighters’ skulls were taken to Paris as war trophies and held in a museum for decades until their repatriation to Algeria on Friday, amid a growing global reckoning with the legacy of colonialism.

Abdelmadjid Tebboune, Algeria's president, said he was hoping for an apology from France for colonial-era wrongs.

“We have already received half-apologies. There must be another step,” he said in an interview with France 24 television.

He welcomed the return of the skulls and expressed hope Emmanuel Macron, France's president, could improve relations and address historical disputes.

Mr Tebboune presided over the interment of the remains on Sunday in a military ceremony at El Alia cemetery east of Algiers, in a section for fallen independence fighters.

Firefighters laid the coffins, draped with green, white and red Algerian flags, in the earth.

The 24 fighters took part in an 1849 revolt after French colonial forces occupied Algeria in 1830. Algeria formally declared independence on 5 July 1962 after a brutal war.

Tayeb Zitouni, the country's veterans minister, welcomed “the return of these heroes to the land of their ancestors, after a century and a half in post-mortem exile”.

The remains of 24 Algerians are carried by members of the Algerian Republican Guard (AP Photo/Toufik Doudou)

Algerians from different regions lined up to pay respect to the fighters on Saturday, when their coffins were on public display at the Algiers Palace of Culture.

Mohamed Arezki Ferrad, a history professor at the University of Algiers, said hundreds of other Algerian skulls remained in France and called for their return, as well as reparations for French nuclear tests carried out in the Algerian Sahara in the early 1960s.

Associated Press