France 'must apologise' for WWII Senegal massacre, says victim's son

 

A gardener walks with his tools past graves at the Thairoye military cemetery in Dakar, on November 26, 2024, where the Senegalese infantrymen killed on December 1, 1944 following a dispute concerning their earnings with the French army are buried. [AFP]

For half a century, the son of a Senegalese soldier massacred by the French army he had fought for during WWII has sought justice for his father and his comrades.

Around 1,600 African soldiers who had been captured by Germany while fighting for France were sent back to Dakar in November 1944.

But soon after arriving at the military camp in Thiaroye, discontent mounted over back pay and their demands to be treated on a par with their white comrades, with some refusing to return to their home countries without their due.

French forces opened fire on the protesters, killing at least 35, according to colonial French authorities, including M'Bap Senghor, Biram's father.

Historians say the real death toll was much higher, with the location of the graves in which they were buried yet to be disclosed.

"France was a coward. It must apologise, pay damages to the people it massacred and raise them to the rank of martyrs," said former police officer Senghor, sitting on a plastic chair on the front porch of his home in Diakhao, central Senegal.

An only child, he was "not yet weaned" when the war broke out in 1939 and his father was drafted into the French army in September 1940.

"I want my father to be compensated. I want support from the Senegalese authorities," said Senghor, who has been invited to an official Senegalese commemoration on Sunday to mark the 80th anniversary of the killings.

More than 100 French MPs called Wednesday for a commission of inquiry into the massacre, which one called a "dark page of our history".

'Only descendant'

Biram Senghor is the only known "living descendant" of the Thiaroye victims, who came from various African countries, French historian Armelle Mabon told AFP.

"They were owed earnings from four years of war, which France refused to pay and moreover, it massacred them. It's a crime on a crime," Senghor said.

Where and how his father died has remained a mystery.

Some say "my father was killed in hospital, others that he is one of those killed in their barracks. I don't know," he said.

M'Bap Senghor was one of six slain troops France posthumously recognised as having "died for France", in a gesture in July by the former colonial power.

The list "can be completed once the exact identity of other victims has been established", according to the French State Secretariat for Veterans and Memory.

But the move has further angered his bereaved son.

Biram Senghor, son of the Senegalese rifleman Mbap Senghor, poses for a portrait at his house in Diakhao on November 22, 2024. [AFP]

'Disgusted'

"I am disgusted by this recognition," said Senghor, who accompanied his mother and uncle to inconclusive meetings with French authorities looking for information about his father in the 1940s and 1950s.

Two decades later, in 1973, he wrote to Senegal's then-president Leopold Sedar Senghor to ask for support -- a letter left unanswered because it was "too sensitive", his chief of staff later said.

Another decade passed before Senghor in 1982 wrote to French president Francois Mitterrand, who promised to investigate, but that "led to nothing".

Finally, in 2013, historian Mabon came across his father's case in the archives and picked up the fight.

"She got in touch with me and we continued this struggle with France," he said.

The French authorities said that "there is no record" of the murdered soldier, Mabon wrote in her book, "Massacre de Thiaroye: History of a State Lie", published in November.

Following the 1944 massacre, M'Bap Senghor was considered as having disappeared "then as a deserter", before his death was officially confirmed in 1953, Mabon told AFP.

Former French president Francois Hollande ended years of denial over the massacre and vowed in 2014 to return to Senegal a copy of all official documents relating to it -- a promise only "partially kept", historians said.