The Soldiers Shot Over Their Back Pay

In November 1944, some sixteen hundred African former prisoners of war sailed home from France to collect four years of back pay. On 1 December, at the Thiaroye camp near Dakar, the French army opened fire on them without losing a single man. The general behind the operation wrote two reports, one counting thirty-five dead and the other seventy, and the survivors were convicted of armed rebellion. Eighty years later, archaeologists opened the graves.

Colonial historyUnsolved casesMemory and redressJustice and trialsSenegalTogoMSM'Bap SenghorAntoine Abibou