Starting in 1979, nearly 2,000 children were evacuated from Namibia (and refugee camps in neighboring Angola and Zambia) to protect them from the violence of civil war between South Africa and the socialist liberation movement, SWAPO. In a gesture of allyship with SWAPO, the GDR accepted almost 500 children for their “protection, education, and socialist training.” In 1990, they were suddenly returned—after Namibia's independence and first all-race elections, which took... see more