Belgium King regrets over the bloody colonial rule in Congo DR, apologizes

Belgium's King Philippe has expressed his "deepest regrets" to the Democratic Republic of Congo for his country's colonial abuses.

The reigning monarch made the comments in a letter to President Félix Tshisekedi on the 60th anniversary of DR Congo's independence.

Belgium controlled the central African country from the 19th Century until it won its independence in 1960.

Millions of Africans died during Belgium's bloody colonial rule.

There is a renewed focus on the European nation's history after the death of George Floyd in police custody in the US and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed.

In the 19th Century, European powers began seizing large swathes of Africa for colonial exploitation.

King Leopold II was granted personal control over huge areas around the Congo river basin - what would become known as the Congo Free State.

The country lasted from 1885 to 1908. During this period more than 10 million Africans are thought to have died of disease, colonial abuses, and while working on plantations for the king.

Authorities would chop off the limbs of enslaved people when they did not meet quotas of materials such as rubber demanded by the crown.

Conditions became so terrible other countries exposed and condemned the atrocities. King Leopold II gave up direct control in 1908, and Belgium formally annexed the country, renaming it the Belgian Congo.

Colonisers continued to use Africans as wage labour and tried to turn it into a "model colony". Widespread resistance eventually led to the nation winning its independence in 1960.