From 1904 to 1907 , the Herero and the Namaqua took up arms against brutal German colonialism . In calculated punitive action by the German occupiers , government officials ordered extinction of the natives in the OvaHerero and Namaqua genocide . In what has been called the " first genocide of the 20th century " , the Germans systematically killed 10,000 Nama ( half the population ) and approximately 65,000 Herero ( about 80 % of the population ) . The survivors , when finally released from detention , were subjected to a policy of dispossession , deportation , forced labor , racial segregation , and discrimination in a system that in many ways anticipated the apartheid established by South Africa in 1948
OvaHerero and Namaqua genocide
Herero and Namaqua genocide
Namibia