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On December 1, Senegal marks the eightieth anniversary of the Thiaroye bloodbath. On that day in 1944, a minimum of 35 Tirailleurs – members of a colonial infantry unit from Senegal who served within the French military – have been gunned down by French forces for demanding their pay after getting back from World Warfare II. For many years, the French military justified the killings, claiming the carnage was in response to a “mutiny”. It was solely in 2012 that then-president François Hollande referred to a “bloody crackdown.” On November 28, President Emmanuel Macron lastly acknowledged in a letter to Senegalese authorities that the horrific occasion that unfolded in Thiaroye in 1944 was certainly a bloodbath.
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