France Is Preparing To Hand Over 41 Skulls To Algeria

Director of the French National Museum of Natural History, Bruno David, told AFP that he prepared a list of 41 skulls, which investigations proved that they belong to Algerians, adding that they were handed over to the Elysee.

“Among the 41 skulls, only 7 belong to resisters who fought against the French occupation in Algeria”.

“We have prepared a list of 41 skulls that were confirmed to belong to Algeria and they were handed over to the Elysee”. 

“They included skulls of Algerian resisters who fought the French and others who were convicted of crimes”.

“Now, we are able to make sure that seven skulls belong to Algerian resisters, including the skull of Sheikh Bouziane, commander of the Zaatcha revolution in eastern Algeria in 1849. He was captured by the French and shot and beheaded by one of his aides, and their heads were added to the museum’s collections in 1880”.

“There is also the skull of Mohamed al-Amjad Ben Abdelmalek, alias Cherif Boubaghla, who blew up a popular revolution and was killed in 1854”.

“We are fully aware of the importance of the process of handing over the skulls to Algeria, given the historical context of the issue … and these human skulls entered our anthropological groups at the end of the 19th century, after many chapters of the French occupation in Algeria”, said the senior official of the French National Museum of Natural History.

In response to what was published by the Algerian researcher, Ali Farid Belkadi, who was the first to see these skulls, and revealed that they are wrapped and placed in ordinary cardboard boxes, similar to the shoe boxes, Bruno said: “These packs are expensive collections, and these skulls are arranged in locked safes and closed rooms “.

“Since I took over as director of the museum at the end of 2015, I have decided that no one has the right to see these skulls in respect of human remains that have been identified. I have never seen them myself, and there are 28 skulls that require in-depth studies for identification. There may exist skulls of prisoners in cases of the public right and people who died in hospitals and Algerian resisters”.

On his official visit to Algeria on December 6, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, pledged to hand over the skulls of Algerians at the Musee de l’Homme that belongs to the Natural History museum.