France has a moral duty to reimburse Haiti billions of dollars worth of “ransom” payments that could help the struggling Caribbean country out of its current crisis, say campaigners.

The renewed call for reparations comes on the bicentenary of an agreement to pay 150m francs to France in 1825 to compensate slave-owning colonists after the Haitian Revolution.

Though the figure was later reduced to 90m, Fritz Deshommes, president of the Haitian National Committee on Restitution and Reparations (HNCRR), estimates the converted value of the payment today could be between $38bn and $135bn, depending on how the sum is calculated and whether it reflects lost customs revenue and economic stagnation.