Remains of 18 Indigenous people held by UK museums return to Australia

‘We have to stand up for our rights, talk to these people and say … we want to take them home’: Uncle Moogie Sumner in December 2021 when Kaurna ancestral remains held by the South Australian Museum were put to rest on country. Photograph: Kelly Barnes/The Guardian

The remains of 18 Indigenous people have been returned to Australia by two British museums, part of the laborious and painstaking effort to recover thousands of ancestors stolen from their traditional lands who now lie in more than 20 countries around the world.

At midnight Australia time on Wednesday, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum returned 17 ancestors to the custodianship of the federal government, which will hold them while further research is undertaken “to determine the traditional custodians”. Another was given to the custodianship of the south-east First Nations people of South Australia, who were represented by Robyn Campbell.