The Baku Initiative Group (BIG) continues its research into the atrocities committed by colonial countries in the territories they occupied. The collected evidence demonstrates that the most brutal and inhumane crimes – constituting a stain on humanity – were committed by Belgian kings.

The Belgian colonialism has gone down in history as one of the darkest and most shameful examples among colonial models. It sharply differed from other European empires in that it was the only one that functioned as the private property of a monarch and was marked by unprecedented systemic brutality and practices of racial humiliation carried out openly in the heart of Europe. One of the most notorious pages of this dark history was the phenomenon known as “human zoos.”

In 1897, on the personal initiative and order of King Leopold II, 267 people forcibly brought from the Congo were displayed as “live exhibits” at the World Exhibition held in Brussels’ Tervuren district. They were exposed to Europe’s cold climate while half-naked, kept behind wooden fences, and treated like animals for public spectacle, with their dignity trampled upon. As a result of this barbaric display, at least seven Congolese individuals, including children, died after suffering from pneumonia, influenza, and other illnesses, and their bodies were buried secretly. Thus, the so-called “civilizing mission” organized by Leopold II turned this human zoo into a blatant symbol of racial humiliation and genocide in the center of Europe.

A permanent museum was later established at the Tervuren site. Initially named the Congo Museum and later renamed the Royal Museum for Central Africa, it functioned as a center for promoting colonial ideology. Similar displays were repeated during the 1958 World Expo in Brussels (“Expo 58”), when 598 people brought from the Congo– 183 families consisting of 273 men, 128 women, and 197 children – were once again presented to the European public as “live exhibits.” Thus, the first “human zoo” organized in Tervuren in 1897 was neither accidental nor temporary, but deeply embedded in the structure of Belgian colonial policy, forming a systematic, institutionalized, and long-term component of it. This practice continued until the mid-twentieth century as a visual embodiment of the ideology of racial hierarchy and the so-called “civilizing mission.”

Between 1959 and 1962, approximately 20,000 children born to white fathers and Black mothers in Burundi, Congo, and Rwanda– then under Belgian colonial administration – were forcibly separated from their families and taken to Belgium for adoption without parental consent. These actions caused severe violations of family ties, identity, and cultural belonging.

The cited facts clearly demonstrate that Belgian colonial policy was systematically based on racist approaches, human rights violations, and the degradation of human dignity.

Source: Report of the UN Working Group of Experts on Peoples of African Descent, published in 2019.