Botswana honors 97-year-old who fought eviction of Indigenous people in Kalahari

Roy Sesana, a 97-year-old San rights activist, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Botswana on October 23 for his three-decade fight against the government's removal of Indigenous communities from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in the 1990s and 2000s. The High Court sided with Sesana nearly 20 years ago, yet the real shift comes from an unexpected quarter: one of the original lawyers defending the San people is now Botswana's president. Since taking office in November 2024, Duma Boko has established a committee to restore Indigenous land rights and approved a September 2026 plan that would preserve the reserve while returning legal land protections to its original inhabitants.