Jul 14, 2026 06:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82108360377?pwd=vmSmeWvHNo6rZeyUG1ht5o3JnYtsKt.1
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BACKGROUND
On July 11, 2026, Dr. Aurelie Measseu-Allegra, Founder and President of Africa Diaspora United, held a Meeting & Dialogue with the Côte d’Ivoire Embassy in the US to discuss an Official visit by an Afrodescendant Delegation exercising their Right To Return & Reparations. Two years prior, Dr. Allegra and Siphiwe Baleka traveled together to Burkina Faso and worked together to submit the Petition to the President of the République de Côte d’Ivoire to Launch a Decade of Return Initiative and Provide Citizenship to the Descendants of the People of Ivorian Origin and Afrodescendants Who were taken from their Ancestral Homeland and Enslaved in the Americas.
No action was taken on the petition at that time though similar petitions were submitted in Guinea Bissau, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone. On December 18, 2025 the AFRICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES' RIGHTS ADOPTED SIPHIWE BALEKA'S RECOMMENDATIONS IN RESOLUTION ON AFRICAN UNION THEME OF THE YEAR - REPARATIONS and
“4. Calls upon Member States to facilitate voluntary heritage and ancestry tracing for people of African descent with appropriate safeguards for privacy and data protection, and to consider pathways for residency, citizenship, and mobility in accordance with national laws.”
This resolution provides absolute regional legal cover for the immediate implementation of DNA-verified citizenship pathways. Under Article 60 and 61 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights—which Côte d'Ivoire ratified on January 6, 1992—the Ivorian state is legally bound to draw inspiration from the resolutions, principles, and jurisprudence adopted by the African Commission. Resolution 653 transforms the granting of citizenship from an "unprecedented domestic anomaly" into a standard compliance measure under the African Union’s broader Common African Position on Reparatory Justice.
Following the adoption of the United Nations General Assembly landmark Resolution A/RES/80/250) declaring the transatlantic slave trade and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans as "the gravest crime against humanity" and the recently concluded High-Level Consultative Conference On The Next Steps To The Landmark United Nations Resolution on the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans held in Accra, Ghana from June 17-19, 2026, Dr. Allegra has determine that the moment is now propitious to re-introduce the petition and lead a delegation to Côte d’Ivoire. During the July 11 Zoom call, it was realized that a humanitarian intervention on behalf of the Haitians could be incorporated in this effort.
Earlier this year, Siphiwe Baleka introduced Dr. Allegra to Yaw Owusu Akyeaw of African Diaspora 126+, whom Baleka also met in Burkina Faso during a delegation led by Diaspora 126+. Now, the three of them are teaming up to go to Côte d’Ivoire to bring reparations and lineage restoration through right of return to that nation.
