Omaruru is a city in the Erongo Region of central Namibia. The town has 14,000 inhabitants and encompasses of land. It is situated near Mount Erongo, on the usually dry Omaruru River. It is located on the main paved road from Swakopmund to Otjiwarongo. The name in the Otjiherero language means 'bitter milk', as Herero cattle herds used to graze on the local bush that turned their milk bitter. Omaruru is known for its annual festival where the Herero people commemorate their past local chiefs, its winery, and for the dinosaur footprints at nearby Otjihaenamparero. History Omaruru was established in 1863 by Wilhelm Zeraua, the first chief of the White Flag clan of the OvaHerero people. In 1871, Anders Ohlsson and Axel Eriksson established a brewery at Omaruru. Eriksson had also established a trading post, which flourished and by 1878 he employed about forty whites. Eriksson's business was based upon long-distance trading between southern Angola and Cape Colony, which necessitated the establishment of regional trade routes. The town grew around a mission built in 1872 by Gottlieb Viehe, now a museum, and was attacked in 1904 during the Herero Wars. Franke Tower was later erected to commemorate the relief by Hauptmann Victor Franke troops of the local Schutztruppe garrison, which had been under siege by the Herero people, who had risen against rule by the German colonial empire. Legacy of von Trotha The descendants of Lothar von Trotha and the von Trotha family travelled to Omaruru in October 2007 by invitation of the royal Herero chiefs and publicly apologised for his role in the Herero genocide. Member of the family Wolf-Thilo von Trotha: "We, the von Trotha family, are deeply ashamed of the terrible events that took place 100 years ago. Human rights were grossly abused that time". Dutch Reformed Church Omaruru Reformed Church, the local congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) was separated from that in Otjiwarongo on March 1, 1941, and included Omaruru, Karibib, Usakos, Kalkfeld, Swakopmund, and Walvis Bay as ward centers. Over the years, six congregations were in turn spun off from the Omaruru one, but the overall numbers were usually sparse given the predominantly ethnic German demographics of the local white population. At its founding, the congregation covered an area of approximately , both north to south and east to west. Politics Omaruru is governed by a municipal council that has