Germany apologised for the first time yesterday for a colonial-era genocide which killed 65,000 Herero people in what is now Namibia.

"We Germans accept our historic and moral responsibility and the guilt incurred by Germans at that time," said Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany's development aid minister, at a ceremony to mark the 100th anniversary of the Hereros' 1904-1907 uprising against their rulers.

"The atrocities committed at that time would have been termed genocide," she said, according to Associated Press.

Although she ruled out financial compensation for the victims' descendants - a civil case has been brought by relatives of those who died - she promised aid, particularly in land reform.

"Everything I have said was an apology from the German government," Mrs Wieczorek-Zeul said to the delight of a crowd of 1,000 people.

The killings happened in 1904 after the Herero people revolted against oppressive German colonial rule.

General Lothar von Trotha was sent to what was then South West Africa to put down the 1904 uprising and, according to historians, instructed his troops to wipe out the tribe.

When the order was lifted at the end of the year, prisoners were herded into camps and allocated as slave labour to German businesses, where many died of overwork and malnutrition.Some two-thirds of the Herero were killed. But until the weekend, Germany has avoided the politically loaded term of genocide.

The Herero people have sought reparations from Germany for years. In 2001, they filed a $4bn (£2.17bn) lawsuit against the government and two German firms in the US.

But Germany dismissed the claim, saying international rules on the protection of combatants and civilians were not in existence at the time of that conflict.

Ranongouje Tjihuiko, chairman of the commemoration committee, said the Herero leadership might now drop legal proceedings.

Hifikepunye Pohamba, Namibia's minister of land also welcomed Germany's gesture.

"That is what we have been waiting for, for a very long time," he said, noting that the apology came on the spot where the conflict ended.