Belgium once ruled over what are now modern-day Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.
During that period, which ended at independence in the early 1960s, thousands of children born to Belgian fathers and African mothers were taken from their maternal families.
The children, known as "metis" in French, were frequently rejected by their fathers and denied birth certificates.
They were kept apart from society in church-run orphanages or boarding schools for fear of challenging the racial segregation of the time.
Belgium formally apologized in 2019 for the "injustices and suffering" of those impacted and launched the scheme to gather and open up its archives.
The state archive said Monday that 268 requests for access to documents from mixed-race people or their descendants had been introduced.
In 70 percent of cases, that made it possible to identify family links or data on their origins that had previously been unknown to them.
"It is terrible to be cut off from one's roots," Belgian's foreign minister Hadja Lahbib told a press conference.
"We contributed to this history, we must be able to contribute to repairing it today."
Lahbib said that her ministry, which inherited the documents from the department overseeing the colonies, had already transferred half of the "10 kilometers" of papers it had to the state archive.
"This is a colossal task that must be continued," she added.
Mixed-Race Belgians Trace Origins
BRUSSELS - Over 250 mixed-race offspring of Belgians taken from their families during the colonial period have begun tracing their origins under a scheme aimed at helping heal the wounds of the past.
