BIG exposes Belgium’s colonial crimes and racial atrocities

The Baku Initiative Group has continued its investigations into crimes committed by colonial powers in occupied territories, releasing new findings that highlight what it describes as some of the most brutal and inhuman atrocities carried out under Belgian colonial rule, Azernews reports.

According to information disseminated by the Group, Belgian colonialism stands out in European history as a unique and particularly dark model, having functioned as the personal monarchical possession of King Leopold II. Unlike other colonial systems, it was marked by extreme systematic brutality, racial humiliation, and practices openly repeated in the heart of Europe. One of the most shameful manifestations of this policy was the creation of so-called “human zoos.”

In 1897, on the direct order of Leopold II, 267 Congolese people were forcibly brought from the Congo and exhibited as “living displays” at the World Exhibition in the Tervuren area of Brussels. Kept half-naked behind wooden fences and exposed to harsh European weather conditions, they were treated as objects rather than human beings. As a result of this barbaric exhibition, at least seven Congolese individuals, including children, died from pneumonia, influenza, and other illnesses, after which their bodies were secretly buried. The display, presented under the guise of a “civilizing mission,” became a symbol of open racial humiliation and genocide in Europe.

The site later became a permanent museum, first known as the Congo Museum and later as the Royal Museum for Central Africa, which functioned for decades as a propaganda center for colonial ideology. Similar practices were repeated during the 1958 Expo in Brussels, where 598 Congolese people—183 families comprising men, women, and children—were once again exhibited to the public as “living displays.” These events demonstrated that the 1897 exhibition was not an isolated episode, but part of a systematic and institutionalized colonial policy rooted in racial hierarchy and the ideology of a so-called civilizing mission that persisted into the mid-20th century.

The Group also highlighted documented cases from 1959–1962 in Burundi, Congo, and Rwanda, then under Belgian rule, where approximately 20,000 children born to white fathers and Black mothers were forcibly separated from their families and transferred to Belgium for adoption without parental consent. These actions resulted in severe violations of family unity, personal identity, and cultural belonging.

According to the Baku Initiative Group, these facts collectively demonstrate that Belgium’s colonial policy was based on systematic racism, widespread human rights abuses, and grave violations of human dignity. The findings are consistent with conclusions outlined in the 2019 report of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent.