SOS Bushmen

Survival International said the “attempt by the Botswana government to punish San for hunting to feed their families has backfired”, BBC Africa reports.

The San of the Kalahari have faced years of legal rows for the right to live on their ancestral lands.

The six men were arrested in 2007 in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

A year earlier, San had won a landmark legal victory against the government allowing them to return to land in the reserve and hunt without permits.

Many returned to the reserve, but Survival said they had struggled with access to water and still had to obtain permits to hunt, although “not a single permit has been awarded”.

“The Bushmen are not allowed access to their own water, they’re refused hunting permits, and they’re arrested when they do hunt, which is the only way they can feed their families,” the group’s director, Stephen Corry, said.