Germany agrees to pay Namibia €1.1bn over historical Herero-Nama genocide

It is understood the text of the joint declaration will call German atrocities genocide' but omit the words reparations' or compensation'

Germany has to agreed to pay Namibia 1.1bn (940m) as it officially recognised the Herero-Nama genocide at the start of the 20th century, in what Angela Merkel's government says amounts to a gesture of reconciliation but not legally binding reparations.

Tens of thousands of men, women and children were shot, tortured or driven into the Kalahari desert to starve by German troops between 1904 and 1908 after the Herero and Nama tribes rebelled against colonial rule in what was then named German South West Africa and is now Namibia.