Boris Johnson offers ‘unreserved apology’ to families of black and Asian soldiers who were denied gravestones after fighting for the British Empire
- PM said he was ‘deeply troubled’ by the failure to commemorate their deaths
- Came after report found deaths of black and Asian troops went unrecorded
- Johnson said: ‘I am deeply troubled by the findings of the special committee’
Boris Johnson has offered an ‘unreserved apology’ to the families of black and Asian soldiers who died fighting for the British Empire but were denied gravestones.
The Prime Minister said he was ‘deeply troubled’ by the failure to commemorate their deaths in the same way as their white comrades due to racism.
It came after a report by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) found that the deaths of many black and Asian troops during the First World War went unrecorded. Meanwhile white soldiers received headstones or had their names engraved on memorials.
In a statement, Mr Johnson said: ‘I am deeply troubled by the findings of the special committee that not all of our war dead were commemorated with equal care and reverence.
‘On behalf of the Government, I offer an unreserved apology.
The Prime Minister said he was ‘deeply troubled’ by the failure to commemorate their deaths in the same way as their white comrades due to racism
‘Our shared duty is to honour and remember all those, wherever they lived and whatever their background, who laid down their lives for our freedoms at the moment of greatest peril.’
The CWGC works to commemorate Commonwealth forces and ensure that all those killed in the two world wars are remembered in the same way, regardless of rank, background or religion.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told parliament there was no doubt that prejudice had played a part in some of the failures of the Imperial War Graves Commission, the CWGC’s precursor.
He also expressed ‘deep regret’ that it had taken so long to rectify the situation.
The CWGC’s report found that between 45,000 and 54,000 casualties, predominantly Indian, Egyptian, Somali and from East and West Africa, were commemorated ‘unequally’.
Another 116,000 casualties and as many as 350,000, predominantly from East Africa and Egypt, were not commemorated by name or possibly not at all.
‘The events of a century ago were wrong then and are wrong now,’ Claire Horton, director general of the CWGC, said. ‘We recognise the wrongs of the past and are deeply sorry and will be acting immediately to correct them.’
It came after a report by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) found that the deaths of many black and Asian troops during the First World War went unrecorded. Pictured: The Cenotaph
The CWGC, which will act on the report’s 10 recommendations such as seeking out new names and adding explanations at relevant sites, commissioned the inquiry in December 2019 after a television documentary found Africans killed in World War One had not been commemorated equally.
‘Underpinning all these decisions…were the entrenched prejudices, preconceptions and pervasive racism of contemporary imperial attitudes,’ the report said.
The investigation found the example of a British governor saying ‘the average native of the Gold Coast would not understand or appreciate a headstone’.
An officer who later worked for the Imperial War Graves Commission wrote that ‘most of the natives who died are of a semi-savage nature’, so erecting headstones would be a waste of public money.
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