Those killed were members of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais, and were veterans of the 1940 Battle of France who had been recently liberated from prison camps in Europe.

After being repatriated to West Africa, they protested against poor conditions and unpaid wages at the Thiaroye military camp.

However, declassified military documents suggest the massacre was considered in advance (even prior to arrival in Senegal) and most or all of the victims were unarmed.

[4] Unlike their white compatriots, the colonial prisoners of war were imprisoned in Frontstalags [fr] in France instead of being brought to Germany.

[15] By contrast, the report of a squadron chief present on the ship Circassia as well as the testimony of the lieutenant colonel Jean Le Berre suggest that the killing of the soldiers was planned or at least considered in advance, and that they had only recently woken up when the assembled military units entered the camp and unexpectedly surrounded them.

[18] According to an article published in Al Jazeera on 22 November 2013, some veterans later claimed that the death toll actually reached as high as 300 dead.

[19] On 4 December 1944, a circulaire from the war ministry falsely claimed all of the liberated prisoners had already received their full pay before the events at Thiaroye had occurred.

[1] The army captain Castel reported that, upon arriving in Morocco in January 1945 with a contingent of Senegalese troops, he informed them of the fate of their "predecessors" under the "disciplinary measures" enforced at Thiaroye.

The French have based this claim on the notion that German soldiers, in an attempt to undermine the loyalty of France's colonial subjects in Africa, had given the tirailleurs favored treatment as prisoners of war.

The film received positive reviews at the time it was released and continues to be heralded by scholars as important historical documentation of the Thiaroye massacre.

[19] Guinean writer Fodéba Keïta wrote and staged the narrative poem Aube africaine ("African Dawn", 1957)[27] as a theatre-ballet based on the massacre.