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BaTwa (Africa)

Last modified: 2021-11-03 by rob raeside
Keywords: twa | batwa | pygmy |
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Flag of the Twa people image by Ivan Sache, 12 Sep 1999
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Description of the flag

This flag is listed under number 8 at the chart Flags of Aspirant Peoples [eba94] as: «Batwa (Twa, “Pygmies”) - Central Africa.»: Vertical blue-white-green with a red disc over the half of white and green stripes. Twa tribes are scattered over Democratic Congo, Central African Republic, Burundi and Rwanda, and have no common political organization. Nice original design, anyway.
Ivan Sache, 12 Sep 1999

I have been informed that this flag continues to be used to represent them and they remain a member of UNPO. There is a one-page summary of the Batwa People on UNPO's website at; https://unpo.org/members/7861. There is also a link to an UNPO member profile PDF, which includes their flag of vertical blue, white & green stripes, with a red disc over lapping parts of the white & green stripes, at https://unpo.org/downloads/2434.pdf
Ralph Bartlett, 30 October 2021


About the BaTwa

There is an interesting aspect to the name Twa (plural BaTwa) — it appears to be a Bantu root-word, since it is also found in the Bantu languages of South Africa. However, in this country it does not refer to Pygmies, but to Bushmen (in Sotho the term for Bushman is Twa, plural Batwa. In Zulu and Xhosa the word is also twa, plural abatwa); the root word would appear to mean "aboriginal".
Mike Oettle, 15 Mar 2007