The Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel has formally apologized on April 4, 2019 for the treatment of children out of mixed relations, so-called ´Metissen´. Hundreds of children were taken from their mothers in Congo, Rwanda and Burundi and placed in orphanages in Belgium during the 1940s and 1950s. Many mothers and their children are still searching for each other. The Roman Catholic church apologized for its role years ago but Belgium has always been unresponsive to calls for apologies and reparations.
The Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, established in 2002 by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, visited Belgium in February 2019 at the invitation of the Belgian Government. The Working Group will publish its full report in September 2019 but advised the Belgian Government on a number of points and urged it ´to issue an apology for the atrocities committed during colonization´.