France returns three human skulls stored at the Natural History Museum to Madagascar.

A 2023 law will bring some peace to Madagascar regarding its past as a French colony. The law, which requires the state to return improperly stored foreign human remains, was applied for the first time this Tuesday, when France returned three human skulls it kept at the Natural History Museum to Madagascar, their place of origin. On August 31, they will be buried in their homeland to finally rest in peace.

Although it is not certain, it is believed that one of the skulls belongs to King Toera, a Malagasy monarch who was beheaded by the French army during an uprising in the then French colony in 1897. Both this human remains and the other two skulls belong to the Sakalava ethnic group, and were handed over in a ceremony marked by apology and respect to the Malagasy authorities at the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture in Paris.

The Malagasy government believes the remains are "the invisible and indelible link that unites us with our past."

Madagascar had been demanding this gesture from France for years, particularly in the case of King Toera. His death was part of an attack by the French army, which decided to take the monarch's head back to France as a trophy and as a sign of humiliation to the island's natives.

The damage has survived to this day. A zomba (funerary structure) on the island commemorates the three centuries of the Sakalava kingdom of Menabe. The relic of King Toera was never removed due to the dismemberment he suffered at the hands of French troops. Despite this, a descendant of the decapitated king has been guarding the sacred relics for 35 years. "It's my destiny," he explained to Le Monde .

For Rachida Dati, quoted by AFP, the restitution "marks a historic event," after more than a century of retention of human remains "in conditions that objectively violate human dignity and in a context of colonial violence." Dati asserted that relevant scientific work has been carried out to ensure that the returned skulls come from the Sakalava community.

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During a visit to Madagascar in April, French President Emmanuel Macron called for this restitution in order to "create the conditions for forgiveness" for one of the "bloodiest and most tragic pages" in French colonial history.

Malagasy Minister of Culture, Volamiranty Donna Mara, praised "a gesture of immense importance," since the skulls "are the invisible and indelible link that unites our present with our past." "Their absence has been, for more than a century, 128 years, an open wound in the heart of our island," she added.