Senegal on Sunday commemorated the 80th anniversary of a massacre of African soldiers who fought for France during World War Two, and were gunned down by French troops in 1944 for demanding fair treatment and payment on their return.

Heads of state from Mauritania, the Comoros, Gabon, the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, and France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot joined Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye who has used the anniversary to call for a new relationship with France. 

All laid wreaths at the scene of the killings at the former Thiaroye military camp, just outside Dakar, which have long been a stain on relations between Senegal and France.

Around 1,600 soldiers from West Africa who had been captured by Germany while fighting for France were sent back to Dakar in November 1944.

After arriving at the Thiaroye military camp, discontent mounted over unpaid wages and demands to be treated on a par with white soldiers. Some protesters refused to return to their home countries without their due.

French forces opened fire on December 1, killing at least 35 people, French authorities said at the time. Historians say the real death toll could be as high as 400 as some of the victims’ graves have yet to be disclosed.

The 202 graves at Thiaroye cemetery are anonymous and it is not known how many are victims of the 1944 killings.

“Defenceless African heroes, armed with courage, dignity and African solidarity were killed in cold blood. It was a massacre,” said Faye.

“The scale of this crime remains minimised and often even denied by some elements of the heirs of those who committed it,” he added.

Elected this year on a promise to reclaim national sovereignty, Faye said there had been 80 years of “omerta”, or official silence, on the deaths by Senegal’s leaders.

This week France finally acknowledged that the killing of scores of African troops by French forces had been a “massacre”.