Belgian court rules against state in a landmark case addressing its colonial past

Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — A Brussels appeals court has ruled that the Belgian state committed a crime against humanity in the case of five mixed-race women who were taken away from their Black mothers in infancy. In a landmark case addressing the Belgian colonial past in Africa, the five women fought a legal battle over some some six years to make Belgium recognize responsibility for the suffering of thousands of mixed-race children. Known as “métis,” the children were snatched away from families and placed in religious institutions and homes by Belgian authorities that ruled Congo from 1908 to 1960.