More than 81 years after the events, the truth is resurfacing from the soil of Thiaroye, Senegal. Recent archaeological excavations have unearthed bullets, bones, and human remains, confirming what Africans have known all along: the Thiaroye massacre of 1944 was never a “mistake,” but a premeditated colonial crime deliberately covered up.

According to a 2025 report from ongoing excavations on the Thiaroye site, more than 300 African soldiers were executed by the French colonial army, even though official figures long mentioned only 35 deaths.

A Senegalese research committee led by historian Mamadou Diouf confirmed, during a press conference in Dakar on October 17, that French military records were deliberately falsified. Departure lists, troop numbers, and casualty counts were altered to conceal the true scale of the massacre.

“Colonial archives show massive manipulation,” Diouf said, adding that the French army and colonial administration had “organized silence.”

This was not a tragic accident but a carefully engineered disinformation campaign that lasted for generations.

On December 1, 1944, at the Thiaroye military camp near Dakar, over 1,300 African tirailleurs (riflemen) veterans returning from Europe were waiting for their demobilization and back pay. These men, taken from their villages by colonial France, had fought on some of the deadliest fronts in Italy, Provence, and Alsace. They faced Nazi bullets to defend a country that was not their own. Yet once the war ended, the Republic they had helped save denied them the most basic dignity: that of........

© RT.com