Sétif and Guelma massacre: 81 years of the brutal killing of 45,000 Algerians

May 8, 1945, at the end of the Second World War, France and its allied forces were celebrating victory after winning against the Nazi forces, when in Sétif, Guelma, Kherrata, Carita and other cities, more than ten thousand Algerians peacefully took to the streets demanding Algeria's independence—just as France had previously promised that in return for supporting their fight against Nazism, they would also be given independent status.

But the French colonial forces pounced on the unarmed freedom-seeking people. In this massacre of several weeks, an estimated 45,000 Algerian Muslims were brutally killed.