The disappearance of Namibia’s grasslands is not a natural occurrence but rather can be traced back to German settler colonial practices following their genocidal campaign against the Nama and Ovaherero in the early 20th c. FA/Forensis worked with descendants of survivors to digitally reconstruct their ancestral lands, quantify environmental degradation, and trace colonialism’s enduring impact.

Since October 2023, demonstrations in solidarity with the people of Palestine have been subjected to significant police violence, but also misinformation. Following the annual Nakba Day demonstration, Berlin Police claimed an officer had been severely injured by violent protesters. Our analysis of video evidence showed every one of their claims to be false.

For decades, across Europe and the US, acts of solidarity with Palestine have been silenced by states, and by institutions. Since the genocide in Gaza escalated, from October 2023 onwards, incidents of repression have increased across civil society. The Index presents data collected by the ELSC, drawing patterns between hundreds of such incidents. The project’s first phase focuses on Germany.

Countless migrants and refugees remain trapped in Libya’s network of brutal detention centres, tortured and mistreated. Through interviews with survivors and local experts, we trace the evolution of state-affiliated detention centres out of people-trafficking networks, and their entanglement with EU support.

First drawn a century ago, the border that separates Greece from Turkey along the Evros/Meriç river at the EU’s southeastern frontier is deadlier and more opaque than ever. FA/Forensis built an interactive platform that unpacks this complex and lethal border infrastructure, and examines the present-day condition of the border against the transformation of the river landscape over the past century.

During their genocidal campaign against the indigenous Ovaherero and Nama, German colonial troops established concentration camps across today’s Namibia. The largest was in the port town of Swakopmund, a logistics hub built by forced labour. Working with local activists, we reconstructed the town as it was at that time, revealing the location of Swakopmund's concentration camp for the first time.

During their genocidal campaign against the Ovaherero and Nama between 1904 and 1908, German colonial troops established five concentration camps across German Southwest Africa. Shark Island, also known as ‘Death Island’, was the most notorious. FA and Forensis worked with descendants of the camp’s victims and survivors to reconstruct this space of trauma, which today faces new threats of erasure.

On 12 April 1893, German troops attacked the Nama settlement of ||Nâ‡gâs, also known as Hornkranz, located in present-day Namibia. This was the little-known first chapter in a genocidal campaign against the Nama and Ovaherero that culminated between 1904 and 1908. We worked with descendants to reconstruct the lost settlement and support Nama claims for access to and preservation of the site.

Despite widespread recognition of the growing risk of genocide in Gaza, Germany continues to offer military support to Israel through the supply of arms. Our report on past, current, and potential future arms export licences and deliveries from Germany to Israel supports an urgent application filed by Berlin-based lawyers on behalf of Palestinians in Gaza to stop all such exports.

23-year-old Sammy went to Amsterdam to celebrate his birthday with friends. Three days later, after an episode of mental health crisis, Sammy was shot to death by police, who claim he threatened them with a knife. At the request of Sammy's family, FA and Forensis examined the video evidence and police testimony, while reconstructing Sammy's body position at the moment of the shots.

On 14 June 2023, a boat carrying hundreds of migrants sank inside the Greek search and rescue zone in the Mediterranean Sea—the deadliest migrant shipwreck in recent history. Our digital reconstruction of the boat and mapping of its trajectory reveal inconsistencies in the Hellenic Coast Guard’s (HCG) account and indicate that over 600 people drowned as the result of a failed towing by the HCG.

Before it was destroyed by a Russian airstrike, the Mariupol Theater was not only a key refuge in the besieged city but a unique site of solidarity and resistance. Working with Forensis and FA, the Center for Spatial Technologies assembled a vast archive of evidence and interviewed survivors of the strike to tell the story of a self-organised commune: a city within a building.

The fire which destroyed the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesvos was at least the 247th outbreak to have occurred in and around the overcrowded camp since 2013. Six young asylum seekers who came to be known as the 'Moria 6' were accused of arson and jailed. FA and Forensis reconstructed the fire’s spread, casting significant doubt on the basis for those convictions.

From 1904–1908, Germany committed genocide against the Herero, Mbanderu and Nama peoples in their colony of ‘South-West Africa’ (present-day Namibia). FA/Forensis partnered with genocide activists from descendant communities to begin to produce a body of digital evidence that can be leveraged in support of demands for land restitution and reparations.

Asylum seekers crossing the Aegean Sea are intercepted within Greek waters or arrested after they arrive on Greek shores, beaten, stripped of their possessions, and then forcefully loaded onto life rafts and left to drift back to the Turkish coast. FA/Forensis verified and mapped evidence for over 2000 such ‘drift-backs’, demonstrating the scale of this violent and illegal border defence practice.

The Russian strike on the Kyiv TV tower and the site of Babyn Yar on 1 March 2022 resulted in civilian casualties and urban destruction—but it also pierced through layers of historical strata, exposing a history of violence, genocide and negation that unfolded on the very same ground. This is the first installation in a new long-term collaboration with the Center for Spatial Technologies.

On 19 February 2020, nine people were murdered in a racist terror attack in Hanau, Germany. After the attack, the perpetrator went to his house, where he killed his mother, and himself. Police knew the perpetrator’s address early on but did not storm the house for almost five hours. We were asked by the victims’ families and the Initiative 19. Februar to examine how the police operation unfolded.

At Europe’s southeastern river border, migrants report being beaten, detained, and illegally ‘pushed back’ to Turkey from Greece by unidentified masked men. Greek and EU authorities refuse to investigate. We worked with Parvin, a young woman from Iran, to analyse evidence she had gathered during her crossings and reconstruct her journey and experiences of ‘pushback’.

On 19 February 2020, in Hanau, Germany, a racist terror attack left nine people dead, six of them in or near the local Arena bar. There are reports that the bar’s emergency exit was routinely locked, and the victims of the attack didn’t run towards it for that reason. We examined whether, had they tried to do so, and it had been open, they could have survived the attack.