Senegal marks the end of the slave trade

Dakar (AFP) - Senegal gathered diplomats representing nations across the world on Monday to commemorate the abolition of the slave trade at a ceremony in the capital Dakar.

"The youth of today has the right to know the story of their ancestors who resisted slavery," city hall official Soham Wardini told guests at the unveiling of a marble plaque.

Chinese ambassador Xia Huang and diplomats from the French, American, Belgian and Malian embassies joined students in applauding the memorial, which marks "the struggles of slaves and French abolitionists".

The ceremony marked the first official National Day of Remembrance for the Resistance to Trafficking and Slavery, which coincides with the date of abolition in the French colonies in 1848.

Previous unofficial commemorations have been held on Goree Island, an important transit point for the Atlantic slave trade, four kilometres (over two miles) off Dakar.

Goree processed many of the estimated 12 million Africans who over three centuries crossed the Atlantic Ocean bound in chains, their lives and liberty traded in the US slave market.

The cramped cells of the island's House of Slaves -- built by the Dutch in 1776 -- was the reputed last exit for thousands of manacled Africans destined for the New World.

Senegal, a former French colony, became the first African country to adopt legislation outlawing the slave trade as recently as 2010.