To the open lay a 200-mile waterless desert called the Omaheke sandveld. Von Trotha was able to force the people into the desert, where he had poisoned the few water wells. His troops locked the Hereros in the desert, where they died by the thousands. Thus, von Trotha's tactics turned to genocide. He erected a 150-mile line of German guardposts, keeping the Hereros in the desert.
Oral histories say men slit the throats of cattle to drink the blood.
They suckled the breasts of new mothers. Infants withered and died in days. Some Hereros cut open the bellies of the dead to drink the liquid from their stomachs. Men who escaped the desert were lynched KKK style. Women and children survivors had chains placed around their necks and were worked to death.