The Island of Goree was once a key transit center on the western coast of Africa in slave trade.
The tiny island of Senegal, which is not far from Senegal's capital Dakar, dots the azure Atlantic coastline. It is the nearest point on the continent to the Americas.
The island has brightly-colored buildings and lush flora, make it hard to associate this picturesque island with the brutal history of the slave trade.
However, historical remnants reveal a darker past.
The island was successively occupied by the Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain, and France, who used it as a slave warehouse and eventually made it West Africa's largest slave trade center.
At least 20 million Africans were trafficked through this island to the Americas and other places, and 5 million Africans died on the island from the 15th century to the 19th century, statistics showed.
Due to its historic significance in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Goree was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1978.
"Why was Goree one of the most important transit centers, because first of all, if you try to compare all the West African coast, you can see from here you could cross more closer to America. And the second [reason], as an island when they brought captees, they couldn't escape. Any European nations based here used to build up a kind of fortification. This was the French one. And they had all this to defend the island. It was so strategical, because from Goree that must help them to make control all along of the West African coast," said Laidi, a local guide.
Today, Goree stands as a poignant reminder of past atrocities and a symbol of the enduring spirit of liberation and justice.
Each year on Dec 2, which is the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, the world reflects on these injustices and renews its commitment to ending slavery.
Senegal's Goree Island: from center of slave trade to symbol of freedom
Former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin on Friday called on China and France to jointly promote multilateralism and cooperation.
Raffarin is currently in the Chengdu City of southwest China's Sichuan Province, the second stop of French President Emmanuel Macron's state visit to China from Wednesday to Friday.
Macron's visit is a significant opportunity for the two major powers to rebalance bilateral trade ties, and also a chance for them to redefine a vision for global governance, Raffarin told China Global Television Network (CGTN).
Noting that China and France are both peace-loving countries, Raffarin said they must work together to contribute to world peace and promote multilateralism. "France and China are peace-loving nations. The Chinese people have never waged a war outside their borders -- they have fought only when attacked. China can speak for peace, and so can France, which managed to make peace with Germany despite the many tragedies that occurred during three wars. We are peaceful peoples, and therefore we must contribute together to world peace," said Raffarin.
"Both China and France support a multilateral global governance system. We want to reform multilateralism because today's rules are still those of 1945. It has been a long time since the UN and other international institutions were created. They must be reformed and modernized, while preserving the ambition of multilateralism to uphold world peace. From this perspective, Sino-French cooperation is in the interest of both countries -- and also in the interest of the world and of global peace," he added.
Raffarin said he expects more cooperation between China and Europe, and called for China's support in ending the Ukraine crisis.
"We clearly need to make progress in China-Europe cooperation. We must also make commercial progress by increasing cooperation between our industries -- including more Chinese components in European products, and more European components in Chinese products. We have progress to make, but the path has been set by the two heads of state. A new path has been opened for more balanced development. And of course, what is very important is that a war is now being fought in Europe -- in Ukraine. We need China's peaceful engagement to help the world find a way toward peace, in this conflict as well as many others. Peace is at the heart of our commitments -- it is China's commitment, and it is also France's," said Raffarin.
Former French PM urges China, France to jointly promote multilateralism, cooperation
