France's unanswered crimes: The son of a Senegalese massacre victim fights for his father’s memory Lifelong Search for Justice

The American newspaper Barron’s has published an article discussing the long-standing struggle of Biram Senghor, the son of a Senegalese soldier killed in the 1944 French massacre at Thiaroye, Senegal. Caliber.Az presents the paraphrased version of the piece.

For over fifty years, Biram Senghor, the son of a Senegalese soldier killed by the French army he had fought for during World War II, has been seeking justice for his father and his fellow soldiers. In November 1944, approximately 1,600 African soldiers who had been captured by Germany while serving France were returned to Dakar. 

Upon arrival at the military camp in Thiaroye, tensions rose over unpaid wages and their demands to be treated equally to their white counterparts. Some soldiers refused to return home without their due. In response, French forces opened fire on the protesters, killing at least 35, according to colonial French authorities, including Senghor’s father, M'Bap Senghor. However, historians believe the actual death toll was much higher, and the locations of their graves remain undisclosed.

"France was a coward. It must apologise, pay damages to the people it massacred and raise them to the rank of martyrs," said Biram Senghor, sitting 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," Senghor said, as he prepared to attend an official commemoration on Sunday marking the 80th anniversary of the killings.

More than 100 French MPs called for a commission of inquiry into the massacre, with one describing it as a "dark page of our history." Biram Senghor is the only known "living descendant" of the Thiaroye victims, who came from various African countries, according to French historian Armelle Mabon. "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.

The circumstances of his father's death remain unclear. Some reports suggest "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 soldiers posthumously recognized by France as having "died for France" in a gesture made in July by the former colonial power. However, Senghor was angered by this recognition. "I am disgusted by this recognition," he said, reflecting on the inconclusive meetings his family had with French authorities in the 1940s and 1950s.

In 1973, Senghor wrote to Senegal's then president Leopold Sedar Senghor, asking for support. However, the letter was ignored because it was considered "too sensitive," according to his chief of staff. A decade later, Senghor appealed to French President Francois Mitterrand, who promised an investigation, but it led to nothing. It wasn't until 2013 that historian Mabon discovered his father's case in the archives and resumed the fight. "She got in touch with me and we continued this struggle with France," he said.

The French authorities claimed that "there is no record" of the murdered soldier, according to Mabon in her book Massacre de Thiaroye: History of a State Lie, published in November. After the 1944 massacre, M'Bap Senghor was classified as having disappeared and then as a deserter, before his death was officially confirmed in 1953, Mabon explained. Former French president Francois Hollande acknowledged the massacre in 2014, promising to return to Senegal a copy of all official documents related to it, a promise that historians say was only "partially kept."