One of the deadliest construction projects in history, the Congo-Océan railroad likely caused as many as 23,000 African deaths. Unofficial estimates are much higher, and the exact number will never be known. Historian JP Daughton speaks to Elinor Evans about his new book on the arduous 13-year project led by French colonisers in equatorial Africa, in the wake of the First World War.
JP Daughton is the author of In the Forest of No Joy: The Congo-Océan Railroad and the Tragedy of French Colonialism (W. W. Norton & Company, 2021)