Timcast IRL, 18 August 2026, at 31:38: "far more blood was shed in like literally the 10 years of decolonization in Africa than like the 100s of years of colonial rule."

We rate that false — truth score 0.10, confidence 0.75. The ten-year window the claim names holds roughly 120,000 deaths; the events summoned to fill it span 1959 to 1994.

This is a magnitude claim made at the end of a five-and-a-half-minute block, and eleven seconds later the show has moved on to something else. No number is named. No source is given.

We steelman it first. Post-independence Africa's cumulative violent toll is real and under-discussed — 2 million of 3.9 million global conflict deaths from 1989 to 2024 were in Africa — and the colonial figures are genuinely contested, with Sanderson revising Congo Free State losses down to 1-5 million against Hoc ...