Dakar, June 26 (APS) – Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko announced, Wednesday in the Council of Ministers, that an ad hoc committee will be set up to prepare the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the massacre of Senegalese and African riflemen in 1944, at the Thiaroye camp.
”Addressing the second point of his communication, the Prime Minister informed the Council that in accordance with the decision of the President of the Republic to organize the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the massacre of Senegalese and African riflemen in 1944 at the Thiaroye camp, an ad hoc committee responsible for preparations for the event will be set up. The report of this committee will be submitted to its attention in September 2024,” reports the press release from the Council of Ministers.
On December 1, 1944, several African veterans, returning from Europe after having participated in the Second World War, were massacred by French soldiers at the Thiaroye camp, in the Dakar suburbs, for having claimed their arrears of pay and bonuses. demobilization.
They were demanding their arrears of pay and demobilization bonus, after having participated in the liberation of France under Nazi occupation.
Commonly called “Senegalese tirailleurs”, these soldiers came from the French colonies of Africa, Senegal, Benin, Mali, Ivory Coast, Chad, Central Africa, Niger, Gabon and Togo.
The events leading to the massacre of former Senegalese riflemen in Thiaroye (a suburb of Dakar) in December 1944 were “simply appalling, unbearable”, said French President François Hollande in 2014 in Dakar.
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