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This list includes all events which have been classified as genocide by significant scholarship. As there are varying definitions of genocide, this list includes events around which there is ongoing scholarly debate over their classification as genocide and is not a list of only events which have a scholarly consensus to recognize them as genocide. This list excludes mass killings which have not been explicitly defined as genocidal.[a]
Scholarship varies on the definition of genocide employed when analysing whether events are genocidal in nature.[2] The United Nations Genocide Convention, not always employed, defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group".[3] This and other definitions are generally regarded by the majority of genocide scholars to have an "intent to destroy" as a requirement for any act to be labelled genocide; there is also growing agreement on the inclusion of the physical destruction criterion.[4] Writing in 1998, professors of sociology Kurt Jonassohn and Karin Björnson stated that the Genocide Convention was a legal instrument resulting from a diplomatic compromise; the wording of the treaty is not intended to be a definition suitable as a research tool, and although it is used for this purpose, as it has an international legal credibility that others lack, other definitions have also been postulated. Jonassohn and Björnson go on to say that for various reasons, none of these alternative definitions have gained widespread support.[5]
Three genocides in history have been recognised under the 1948 legal definition: the Cambodian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, and the Srebrenica massacre.[6]
According to Ernesto Verdeja, associate professor of political science and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame, there are three ways to conceptualise genocide other than the legal definition: in academic social science, in international politics and policy, and in colloquial public usage. The academic social science approach does not require proof of intent,[6] and social scientists often define genocide more broadly.[7] The international politics and policy definition centres around prevention policy and intervention and may actually mean "large-scale violence against civilians" when used by governments and international organisations. Lastly, Verdeja says the way the general public colloquially uses "genocide" is usually "as a stand-in term for the greatest evils".[6]
The term genocide is contentious and as a result its definition varies. This list only considers acts which are recognised in significant scholarship as genocides.
Event | Location | Period | Estimated killings | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
From | To | Lowest | Highest | ||
Description | Proportion of group killed | ||||
Masalit massacres | West Dafur, Sudan | 2023 | Present | 15,000[8][9] | |
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of Sudan and its allied Arab militia started to commit organized mass killings of Masalit civilians and also targeting other non-Arab[10] communities around El Geneina during the Sudanese civil war (2023–present). The events included torture, rape, and looting and were described as the worst atrocities against civilians so far in the 2023 conflict in Sudan.[11][12]
See also: War crimes during the Sudanese civil war (2023–present) |
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Gaza genocide | Gaza Strip, Palestine | 2023 | Present | 43,972[b] | 186,000[23] |
Israel has been accused by experts, governments, UN agencies and non-governmental organizations of carrying out a genocide against the Palestinian population during its invasion and bombing of Gaza during the ongoing Israel–Hamas war.[24][25] By March 2024, after five months of attacks, Israeli military action had resulted in the deaths of over 31,500 Palestinians – 1 out of every 75 people in Gaza – averaging 195 killings a day,[26] and nearly 40,000 confirmed deaths by July. Most of the victims are civilians,[27][28] including over 25,000 women and children[29][30] and 108 journalists.[31] Thousands more dead bodies are under the rubble of destroyed buildings.[32][33][34] By March 2024, 374 healthcare workers in Gaza had been killed.[35] |
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Rohingya genocide | Rakhine State, Myanmar | 2016 | Present | 9,000–13,700[45] | 43,000[46] |
The Rohingya genocide[47] is a series of ongoing persecutions and killings of the Muslim Rohingya people by the military of Myanmar. The genocide has consisted of two phases to date: the first was a military crackdown that occurred from October 2016 to January 2017, and the second has been occurring since August 2017.[48]
The crisis forced over a million Rohingya to flee to other countries. Most fled to Bangladesh, resulting in the creation of the world's largest refugee camp,[49] while others escaped to India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia, where they continue to face persecution. The Rohingya are denied citizenship under the 1982 Myanmar nationality law, and are falsely regarded as Bengali immigrants by much of Myanmar's Bamar majority, to the extent that the government refuses to acknowledge the Rohingya's existence as a valid ethnic group.[50] |
Before the 2015 refugee crisis, the Rohingya population in Myanmar was around 1.0 to 1.3 million. Since 2015, over 900,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to southeastern Bangladesh alone, and more to other surrounding countries. More than 100,000 Rohingyas in Myanmar are confined in camps for internally displaced persons. | ||||
Iraqi Turkmen genocide | Islamic State-controlled territory in northern Iraq | 2014 | 2017 | 3,500 | 8,400 |
The Iraqi Turkmen genocide refers to a series of killings, rapes, executions, expulsions, and sexual slavery of Iraqi Turkmen by the Islamic State.[51] It began when ISIS captured Iraqi Turkmen land in 2014 and it continued until ISIS lost all of their land in Iraq. In 2017, ISIS's persecution of Iraqi Turkmen was officially recognized as a genocide by the Parliament of Iraq,[52][53] and in 2018, the sexual slavery of Iraqi Turkmen girls and women was recognized by the United Nations.[54][55] | |||||
Yazidi genocide | Islamic State-controlled territory in northern Iraq and Syria | 2014 | 2017 | 2,100[56] | 5,000[57] |
The Yazidi genocide was perpetrated by the Islamic State throughout Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2017.[58][59][60] It was characterized by massacres, genocidal rape, and forced conversions to Islam. Over a period of three years, Islamic State militants trafficked thousands of Yazidi women and girls and killed thousands of Yazidi men.[61] The United Nations' Commission of Inquiry on Syria officially declared in its report that ISIS was committing genocide against the Yazidis population.[62] It is difficult to assess a precise figure for the killings[63] but it is known that some thousand of Yazidis men and boys were still unaccounted for and ISIS genocidal actions against Yazidis people were still ongoing, as stated by the International Commission in June 2016. | A study found 3,100 killed and 6,880 were kidnapped, amouting to 2.5% of Yazidis being either killed or kidnapped.[64] By 2015, upwards of 71% of the global Yazidi population was displaced by the genocide, with most Yazidi refugees having fled to Iraq's Kurdistan Region and Syria's Rojava.[65][66] | ||||
Darfur genocide | Darfur, Sudan | 2003 | 2005 | 98,000[67] | 500,000[68] |
The Darfur genocide is the systematic killing of ethnic Darfuri people which has occurred during the war in Darfur.[69] The genocide, which is being carried out against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, has led the International Criminal Court to indict several people for crimes against humanity, rape, forced transfer and torture. This includes Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir for his role in the genocide.[70] An estimated 200,000 people were killed between 2003 and 2005.[71] These atrocities have been called the first genocide of the 21st century.[69] | |||||
Effacer le tableau | North Kivu, DR Congo | 2002 | 2003 | 60,000[72][73] | 70,000[72] |
Effacer le tableau ("erasing the board") was the operational name given to the systematic extermination of the Bambuti pygmies by rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The primary objective of Effacer le tableau was the territorial conquest of the North Kivu province of the DRC and ethnic cleansing of Pygmies from the Congo's eastern region.[73] | 40% of the Eastern Congo's Pygmy population killed[N 1] | ||||
Massacres of Hutus during the First Congo War | Kivu, Zaire | 1996 | 1997 | 200,000[74] | 233,000[74] |
During the First Congo War, troops of the Rwanda-backed Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL) conducted mass killings of Rwandan, Congolese, and Burundian Hutu men, women, and children in villages and refugee camps in eastern Zaire (now named the Democratic Republic of the Congo).[75][76] Elements of the AFDL and the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) systematically shelled numerous camps and committed massacres with light weapons. These early attacks killed 6,800–8,000 refugees and forced the repatriation of 500,000 – 700,000 refugees back to Rwanda.[77]As survivors fled westward, the AFDL units hunted them down killing thousands more.[75] | |||||
Rwandan genocide | Rwanda | 1994 | 491,000[78] | 800,000[79] | |
The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred between 7 April and 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War.[80][78][81] During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu militias. Although the Constitution of Rwanda states that more than 1 million people perished in the genocide, the actual number of fatalities is unclear, and some estimates suggest that the real number killed was likely lower.[81][82][83] The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 800,000 Tutsi deaths.[79] | 60–70% of Tutsis in Rwanda killed[78] 7% of Rwanda's total population killed[78] | ||||
Bosnian genocide | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 1992 | 1995 | 31,107[84] | 62,013[84] |
The Bosnian genocide comprised localised massacres, including those in Srebrenica[85] and Žepa, committed by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995, as well as the scattered ethnic cleansing campaign throughout areas controlled by the Army of Republika Srpska[86] during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War.[87] On 31 March 2010, the Serbian Parliament passed a resolution condemning the Srebrenica massacre and apologising to the families of Srebrenica for the deaths of Bosniaks ("Bosnian Muslims").[88] | More than 3% of the Bosniak population of Bosnia and Herzegovina died during the Bosnian War.[89] | ||||
Isaaq genocide | Somaliland, Somalia | 1987 | 1989 | 50,000[90][91][92][93] | 200,000[94] |
The Genocide of Isaaqs was the systematic, state-sponsored massacre of Isaaq civilians between 1988 and 1991 by the Somali Democratic Republic under the dictatorship of Siad Barre.[95][96][97] This included the leveling and complete destruction of the second- and third-largest cities in Somalia, Hargeisa (90 percent destroyed)[98] and Burao (70 percent destroyed) respectively,[99] and had caused 400,000[100][101] Somalis (primarily of the Isaaq clan) to flee their land and cross the border to Hartasheikh in Ethiopia as refugees,[102] with another 400,000 being internally displaced.[100][103]In 2001, the United Nations commissioned an investigation on past human rights violations in Somalia,[95] specifically to find out if "crimes of international jurisdiction (i.e. war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide) had been perpetrated during the country's civil war". The investigation was commissioned jointly by the United Nations Co-ordination Unit (UNCU) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The investigation concluded with a report confirming the crime of genocide to have taken place against the Isaaqs in Somalia.[95] | |||||
Anfal campaign | Kurdistan Region, Iraq | 1986 | 1989 | 50,000[104] | 182,000[105] |
The Anfal campaign was a counterinsurgency operation which was carried out by Ba'athist Iraq from February to September 1988 during the Iraqi–Kurdish conflict at the end of the Iran–Iraq War. The campaign targeted rural Kurds[106] because its purpose was to eliminate Kurdish rebel groups and Arabize strategic parts of the Kirkuk Governorate.[107] The Iraqis committed atrocities on the local Kurdish population, mostly civilians.[108] A variety of national governments have passed resolutions recognising the Anfal campaign as a genocide.[109][110][111] | |||||
Gukurahundi | Matabeleland, Zimbabwe | 1983 | 1987 | 8,000[112] | 30,000[113] |
The Gukurahundi was the systematic massacre of the Ndebele people by Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.[114] The Gukurahundi was initiated because the ZAPU party, the main Zimbabwean opposition party, found the majority of its support among the Ndebele people, leading Mugabe to conclude that they must be exterminated in order to eliminate support for the ZAPU.[115] The Gukurahundi began in 1983, and continued until the signing of the 1987 Unity Accords, during which time about 20, 000 Ndebele were killed and sent to re-education camps. | |||||
Sabra and Shatila massacre | Beirut, Lebanon | 1982 | 460[116] | 3,500[117] | |
The Sabra and Shatila massacre was the 16–18 September 1982 killings of civilians—mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shias—in the city of Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. It was perpetrated by the Lebanese Forces, one of the main Christian militias in Lebanon, and supported by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that had surrounded Beirut's Sabra neighbourhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp.[118] Both the United Nations and an independent commission headed by Seán MacBride concluded that the massacre was an act of genocide against the Palestinian people,[119][120] a conclusion concurred with by NGOs such as the Palestinian Return Centre.[121] Human rights scholars Damien Short and Haifa Rashed also described the massacre as genocidal in nature.[122] | |||||
Cambodian genocide | Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) | 1975 | 1979 | 1,386,734[123][124] | 3,000,000[125][126] |
The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot.[127] The Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and forced Cambodians to relocate to labor camps in the countryside, where mass executions, forced labor, physical abuse, malnutrition, and disease were rampant.[128][129] Up to 20,000 mass graves, the infamous Killing Fields, were uncovered, where at least 1,386,734 murdered victims found their final resting place.[130][131] The Khmer Rouge Tribunal found that targeting of Vietnamese and Cham minorities constituted a genocide under the UN Convention.[132][133] | 15–33% of total population of Cambodia killed, [134][135] including 99% of Cambodian Viets, 50% of Cambodian Chinese and Cham, 40% of Cambodian Lao and Thai, 25% of Urban Khmer, 16% of Rural Khmer | ||||
East Timor genocide | East Timor, Indonesia | 1974 | 1999 | 85,320[136] | 196,720[137] |
The East Timor genocide refers to the "pacification campaigns" of state terrorism which were waged by the Indonesian New Order government during the Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor. Genocide scholars at Oxford University and Yale University acknowledge the Indonesian occupation of East Timor as genocide.[138][139] The truth commission held Indonesian forces responsible for about 70% of the violent killings.[140] | 13% to 44% of East Timor's total population killed (See death toll of East Timor genocide) | ||||
Genocide of Acholi and Lango people | Uganda | 1972 | 1978 | 100,000[141] | 300,000[141] |
After Idi Amin overthrew the regime of Milton Obote in 1971, he declared the Acholi and Lango tribes enemies, as Obote was a Lango and he saw the fact that they dominated the army as a threat.[141]In January 1972, Amin issued an order to the Ugandan army ordering that they assemble and kill all Acholi or Lango soldiers, and then commanded that all Acholi and Lango be rounded up and confined within army barracks, where they were either slaughtered by the soldiers or killed when the Ugandan air force bombed the barracks.[141] | |||||
Ikiza | Burundi | 1972 | 80,000[142][143] | 300,000[144] | |
The Ikiza was a series of mass killings which were committed in Burundi in 1972 by the Tutsi-dominated army and government, primarily against educated and elite Hutus who lived in the country. The International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi presented to the United Nations Security Council in 1996 concluded that the Ikiza was a genocide.[145] | As much as 10% to 15% of the Hutu population of Burundi killed[144] | ||||
Bangladesh genocide | East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) | 1971 | 300,000[146] | 3,000,000[146][147] | |
The Bangladesh genocide was the ethnic cleansing of Bengalis, especially Bengali Hindus,[148] residing in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during the Bangladesh Liberation War, perpetrated by the Pakistan Armed Forces and the Razakars.[149][150] It began as Operation Searchlight was launched by West Pakistan (now Pakistan) to militarily subdue the Bengali population of East Pakistan; the Bengalis comprised the demographic majority and had been calling for independence. Seeking to curtail the Bengali self-determination movement, Pakistani president Yahya Khan approved a large-scale military deployment, and in the nine-month-long conflict that ensued, Pakistani soldiers and local militias killed between 300,000 and 3,000,000 Bengalis and raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bengali women in a systematic campaign of mass murder and genocidal sexual violence.[151] | 4% of the population of East Pakistan[152] | ||||
Zanzibar genocide | Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania) | 1964 | 13,000[153] | 20,000+[154] | |
In January 1964 during and following the Zanzibar Revolution, Arab residents of Zanzibar were targeted for violence by the island’s majority Black African population.[155] Arabs were mass murdered, raped, tortured and deported from the island by Black African militiamen under the Afro-Shirazi Party and Umma Party. The exact death toll is unknown, although scholarly sources estimate the number of Arabs killed to be between 13,000 and more than 20,000.[153][154] | 25% or more of the Arab population (50,000 people) of Zanzibar were killed by the end of 1964.[153] | ||||
Maya genocide | Guatemala | 1962 | 1996 | 166,000[156] | 166,000[157] |
The Guatemalan genocide was the massacre of Maya civilians during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996) by successive US-backed Guatemalan military governments.[158][159][160] Massacres, forced disappearances, torture and summary executions of guerrillas and especially civilians at the hands of security forces had been widespread since 1965, and was a longstanding policy of the military regime, which US officials were aware of.[161][162] At least an estimated 200,000 persons died by arbitrary executions, forced disappearances and other human rights violations.[163] 83% of those killed were Maya.[164] A quarter of the direct victims of human rights violations and acts of violence were women.[165] | 40% of the Maya population (24,000 people) of Guatemala's Ixil and Rabinal regions were killed[citation needed] | ||||
Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush | Soviet Union | 1944 | 1948 | 100,000[166] | 400,000[167] |
The deportation of the Chechens and Ingush, or Ardakhar Genocide, was the Soviet forced transfer of the whole of the Vainakh (Chechen and Ingush) populations of the North Caucasus to Central Asia on 23 February 1944, during World War II. The expulsion was ordered by NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria after approval by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, as a part of a Soviet forced settlement program and population transfer that affected several million members of ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union between the 1930s and the 1950s.[168]
[169] The European Parliament officially recognised the deportations as genocide in 2004.[170][171] |
23.5% to almost 50% of total Chechen population killed[172][169][full citation needed] | ||||
Deportation of the Crimean Tatars | Crimea, Soviet Union | 1944 | 34,000[173] | 195,471[174] | |
The deportation of the Crimean Tatars was the ethnic cleansing and the cultural genocide of at least 191,044 Crimean Tatars which was carried out by the Soviet authorities from 18 to 20 May 1944, supervised by Lavrentiy Beria, and ordered by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Within those three days, the NKVD used cattle trains to deport the Crimean Tatars, mostly women, children, and the elderly, even Communist Party members and Red Army members, to the Uzbek SSR, several thousand kilometres away. Multiple scholars have recognised the deportation as a genocide.[175][176] | The deportation and following exile reduced the Crimean Tatar population by between 18%[173] and 46%.[177][N 2] | ||||
The Holocaust | Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe | 1941 | 1945 | 5,100,000 |
7,000,000 |
The Holocaust was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population.[182][183][184] Nearly one and half million were killed in just 100 days from late July to early November 1942.[185] The murders were carried out primarily through mass shootings and poison gas in extermination camps.[186] Separate Nazi persecutions killed a similar or larger number of non-Jewish civilians and POWs; the term Holocaust is sometimes used to refer to the persecution of these other groups. The Holocaust is considered to be the single largest genocide in history.[187][188] | Around 2/3 of the Jewish population of Europe.[189][190] | ||||
Siege of Leningrad[191][192][193] | Leningrad | 1941 | 1944 | 1,042,000[194][195] | 1,042,000[194][195] |
Some historians and the Russian government have classified the siege, in which German and Finnish policies led to the deaths of more than 1 million civilians from starvation, as a genocide.[194] | |||||
Genocide of Serbs and Holocaust in the Independent State of Croatia | Independent State of Croatia (now Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina) |
1941 | 1945 | 248,000 |
548,000 |
Genocide of Serbs and Holocaust of Jews and Romani within the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a fascist puppet state that existed during World War II, led by the Ustaše regime, which ruled an occupied area of Yugoslavia. The Genocide of Serbs was conducted in parallel to the Holocaust in the NDH. The Ustaše were the only quisling forces in Yugoslavia who operated their own extermination camps for the purpose of murdering Serbs and other ethnic groups (Jews and Romani). | |||||
Genocide of Bosniaks and Croats by the Chetniks | Yugoslavia | 1941 | 1945 | 50,000[199] | 68,000[199] |
The Chetniks, a Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationalist movement and guerrilla force, committed numerous war crimes during the Second World War, primarily directed against the non-Serb population of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, mainly Muslims and Croats, and against Communist-led Yugoslav Partisans and their supporters.[200][201] The Moljević plan ("On Our State and Its Borders") and the 1941 'Instructions' issued by Chetnik leader, Draža Mihailović, advocated for the cleansing of non-Serbs.[202][203] | |||||
Nazi crimes against the Polish nation[204][205] (part of the Generalplan Ost) | German-occupied Europe | 1939 | 1945 | 1,800,000[206] | 3,000,000[207][208] |
Crimes against the Polish nation committed by Nazi Germany and Axis collaborationist forces during the invasion of Poland,[209] along with auxiliary battalions during the subsequent occupation of Poland in World War II,[210] included the genocide of millions of Polish people, especially the systematic extermination of Jewish Poles.[e] These mass killings were enacted by the Nazis with further plans that were justified by their racial theories, which regarded Poles and other Slavs, and especially Jews, as racially inferior Untermenschen. | From 6% to 10% (1.8 to 3 million) of the total Polish gentile population.[208] In addition, 3 million Polish Jews were killed during the Holocaust in Poland (90% of Polish Jews).[206] | ||||
Polish Operation of the NKVD | Soviet Union | 1937 | 1938 | 111,091[212] | 250,000[213] |
The Polish Operation of the NKVD in 1937–1938 was an anti-Polish mass-ethnic cleansing operation of the NKVD carried out in the Soviet Union against Poles (labeled by the Soviets as "agents") during the period of the Great Purge. It was ordered by the Politburo of the Communist Party against so-called "Polish spies" and customarily interpreted by NKVD officials as relating to all Poles. It resulted in the sentencing of 139,835 people, and summary executions of 111,091 Poles living in or near the Soviet Union.[214] Multiple historians have published opinions describing the operation as genocidal.[215] | 22% of the Polish population of the USSR was "sentenced" by the operation (140,000 people)[216] | ||||
Parsley massacre | Dominican Republic | 1937 | 12,000 | 40,000[217] | |
The Parsley massacre was a mass killing of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic's northwestern frontier and in certain parts of the contiguous Cibao region in October 1937. Dominican Army troops from different areas of the country[218] carried out the massacre on the orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.[219] Many died while trying to flee to Haiti across the Dajabón River that divides the two countries on the island;[220] the troops followed them into the river to cut them down, causing the river to run with blood and corpses for several days. The massacre claimed the lives of an estimated 14,000 to 40,000 Haitian men, women, and children.[221] Dominican troops interrogated thousands of civilians demanding that each victim say the word "parsley" (perejil). If the accused could not pronounce the word to the interrogators' satisfaction, they were deemed to be Haitians and killed.[222][223] | As a result of the massacre, virtually the entire Haitian population in the Dominican frontier was either killed or forced to flee across the border.[224] | ||||
Romani Holocaust | German-occupied Europe | 1939[225] | 1945 | 130,000[226] | 1,500,000[227][228] |
The Romani Holocaust was the planned effort by Nazi Germany and its World War II allies and collaborators to commit ethnic cleansing and eventually genocide against European Roma and Sinti peoples during the Holocaust era.[229] A supplementary decree to the Nuremberg Laws issued on 26 November 1935 classified the Romani people as "enemies of the race-based state", thereby placing them in the same category as the Jews. Thus, the fate of the Roma in Europe paralleled that of the Jews in the Holocaust.[230][231] | 25% to 80% of Romani people in Europe killed | ||||
Holodomor | Ukraine and the northern Kuban,[232] Soviet Union | 1932 | 1933 | 3,000,000[233] | 5,000,000[233] |
The Holodomor also known as the Ukrainian Famine was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–1933 which affected the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union.While scholars are in consensus that the cause of the famine was man-made,[234] whether or not the Holodomor was intentional and therefore constitutes a genocide under the Genocide Convention is debated by scholars.[235][236] | 10% of Ukraine's population[237] Over 35% of Ukrainians in Kazakhstan[238] | ||||
Libyan genocide | Italian Libya | 1929 | 1932 | 83,000[239] | 125,000+[240] |
The Libyan genocide was the genocide of Libyan Arabs and the systematic destruction of Libyan culture,[241][242][243] particularly during and after the Second Italo-Senussi War between 1929 and 1934.[244] During this period, between 83,000 and 125,000 Libyans were killed by Italian colonial authorities under Benito Mussolini.[239][240] Italy committed major war crimes during the conflict; including the use of chemical weapons, executing surrendering combatants, and the mass executions of civilians.[239] Italy apologised in 2008 for its killing, destruction and repression of the Libyan people during the period of colonial rule.[245] | 25% of Cyrenaican population[246] Half of the nomadic Bedouin population[247][248][249] | ||||
Osage Indian murders | Oklahoma, United States | 1918 | 1931 | 60[250] | 200+[251] |
The Osage Indian murders was a plot by William King Hale and others to kill full-blood Osage to gain the mineral rights for their reservation. The events have been characterized as a genocide due to the intentions of its perpetrators to destroy the Osage nation.[252][253][254][255][256] | Estimates vary widely, with 10% of 591 full-blood Osage being killed with the lowest estimate.[257] | ||||
Armenian genocide | Ottoman Empire (now Turkey, Syria, and Iraq) | 1915 | 1917 | 600,000[258] | 1,500,000[259] |
The Armenian genocide,[260][261] carried out by the Young Turks, included massacres, forced deportations involving death marches, and mass starvation. It occurred concurrently with the Assyrian and Greek genocides; some scholars consider these to form a broader genocide targeting all of the Christians in Anatolia.[262][263] | Approximately 90% of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were killed or expelled.[264] The share of Christians in area within Turkey's current borders declined from 20-22% in 1914, or about 3.3.–3.6 million people, to around 3% in 1927.[265] | ||||
Sayfo | Ottoman Empire (now Turkey, Syria and Iraq) | 1915 | 1919 | 200,000[266] | 750,000[267] |
The Sayfo (also known as the Seyfo or the Assyrian genocide) was the mass slaughter and deportation of Assyrian/Syriac Christians in southeastern Anatolia and Persia's Azerbaijan province by Ottoman forces and some Kurdish tribes during World War I. | Overall, about 2 million Christians were killed in Anatolia between 1894 and 1924, 40 percent of the original population.[268] | ||||
Greek genocide and Pontic genocide | Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) | 1914 | 1922 | 300,000[269] | 900,000[270] |
The Greek genocide,[271][272] which included the Pontic genocide, was the systematic killing of the Christian Ottoman Greek population of Anatolia which was carried out mainly during World War I and its aftermath (1914–1922) on the basis of their religion and ethnicity.[273] It was perpetrated by the government of the Ottoman Empire led by the Three Pashas and by the Government of the Grand National Assembly led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk,[274] against the Greek population of the Empire. The genocide included massacres, forced deportations involving death marches through the Syrian Desert,[275] expulsions, summary executions, and the destruction of Eastern Orthodox cultural, historical, and religious monuments.[276] | At least 25% of Greeks in Anatolia (Turkey) killed [citation needed] | ||||
Massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars | Scutari, Kosovo, and Manastir vilayets, Ottoman Empire | 1912 | 1913 | 120,000[277][278] | 270,000[279] |
The massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars were perpetrated on several occasions by the Serbian and Montenegrin armies and paramilitaries during the conflicts that occurred in the region between 1912 and 1913.[280] During the 1912–13 First Balkan War, Serbia and Montenegro committed a number of war crimes against the Albanian population after expelling Ottoman Empire forces from present-day Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia, which were reported by the European, American and Serbian opposition press.[281] Most of the crimes occurred between October 1912 and the summer of 1913. The goal of the forced expulsions and massacres was statistical manipulation before the London Ambassadors Conference to determine the new Balkan borders. | 10% of the population of present-day Kosovo (estimated to be 500,000) was victimized[282] | ||||
Herero and Nama genocide | German South West Africa (now Namibia) | 1904 | 1908 | 34,000[283] | 110,000[284][285] |
The Genocide in German South West Africa was the campaign to exterminate the Herero and Nama people that the German Empire undertook in German South-West Africa (modern-day Namibia). It is considered one of the first genocides of the 20th century. | 60% (24,000 out of 40,000[283]) to 81.25% (65,000[286][287] out of 80,000[288]) of total Herero and 50%[283] of Nama population killed. | ||||
Hamidian massacres | Six Vilayets, Ottoman Empire | 1894 | 1896 | 200,000[289] | 300,000[289] |
The Hamidian massacres were massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire that took place in the mid-1890s.[290][291] It was estimated casualties ranged from 80,000 to 300,000,[292] resulting in 50,000 orphaned children.[293] The massacres are named after Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who, in his efforts to maintain the imperial domain of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, reasserted Pan-Islamism as a state ideology.[289] Although the massacres were aimed mainly at the Armenians,[294] they turned into indiscriminate anti-Christian pogroms in some cases, such as the Diyarbekir massacre, where, at least according to one contemporary source, up to 25,000 Assyrians were also killed.[295] | |||||
Selk'nam genocide | Tierra del Fuego, Chile, Argentina | 1880 | 1910 | 2,500[296] | 4,000[297] |
The Selk'nam genocide was the systematic extermination of the Selk'nam people, one of the four indigenous peoples of Tierra del Fuego archipelago, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[298][299] Historians estimate that the genocide spanned a period of between ten and twenty years, and resulted in the decline of the Selk'nam population from approximately 4,000 people during the 1880s to a few hundred by the early 1900s.[296] | 84%The genocide reduced their numbers from around 3,000 to about 500 people.[300][301] | ||||
Putumayo genocide | Present-day Putumayo Department, Colombia | 1879 | 1913 | 32,000[302] | 40,000+[303][304] |
Members of the Huitoto, Andoques, Yaguas, Ocaina and Boras groups were hunted and enslaved so they could be used to extract latex.[305] During this time period, several tribes became extinct.[306] | 80–86% of the total population in the Putumayo region perished during the Amazon rubber boom.[307][N 4] | ||||
Circassian genocide | Circassia, Russian Empire | 1864[N 5] | 1867 | 1,000,000[308] | 2,000,000[309][310] |
The Circassian genocide[311][312] was the Russian Empire's systematic mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and expulsion of the Circassian population, resulting in 1 to 1.5 million deaths[313][f] during the final stages of the Russo-Circassian War.[314][315] The peoples planned for extermination were mainly the Muslim Circassians, but other Muslim peoples of the Caucasus were also affected.[315] Killing methods used by Russian forces during the genocide included impaling and tearing the bellies of pregnant women as means of intimidation of the Circassian population.[314][316] Russian generals such as Grigory Zass described the Circassians as "subhuman filth", and glorified the mass murder of Circassian civilians,[314][317] justified their use in scientific experiments,[318] and allowed their soldiers to rape women.[314] | 95%–97% of total Circassian population killed or deported by the forces of Tsarist Russia.[319][320] Only a small percentage who accepted to convert to Christianity, Russify and resettle within the Russian Empire were spared. The remaining Circassian populations who refused were thus forcefully dispersed, deported or killed. Today, most Circassians live in exile.[321] | ||||
California genocide | California, United States | 1846 | 1873 | 9,492–16,094 |
120,000[323][N 7] |
The California genocide was a series of systematized killings of thousands of Indigenous peoples of California by United States government agents and private citizens in the 19th century. It began following the American Conquest of California from Mexico, and the influx of settlers due to the California Gold Rush, which accelerated the decline of the Indigenous population of California. Between 1846 and 1873, it is estimated that non-Natives killed between 9,492 and 16,094 California Natives. In addition, between several hundred and several thousand California Natives were starved or worked to death. Acts of enslavement, kidnapping, rape, child separation and forced displacement were widespread. These acts were encouraged, tolerated, and carried out by state authorities and private militias.[324] | Amerindian population in California declined by 80% during the period | ||||
Queensland Aboriginal genocide | Queensland | 1840 | 1897 | 10,000[325] | 65,180[326] |
Queensland represents the single bloodiest colonial frontier in Australia. Thus the records of Queensland document the most frequent reports of shootings and massacres of indigenous people, the three deadliest massacres on white settlers, the most disreputable frontier police force, and the highest number of white victims to frontier violence on record in any Australian colony.[327] Thus some sources have characterized these events as a Queensland Aboriginal genocide.[328][325] | 3.3% to over 50% of the aboriginal population was killed (10,000[325] to 65,180[326] killed out of 125,600)[clarification needed] | ||||
Moriori genocide | Chatham Islands, New Zealand | 1835 | 1863 | 1,900[329][330] | 1,900 |
The genocide of the Moriori began in the fall of 1835. The invasions of the Chatham Islands by Maori from New Zealand left the Moriori people and their culture to die off. Those who survived were either kept as slaves or eaten and Moriori were not sanctioned to marry other Moriori or have children within their race. This caused their people and their language to be endangered. There were only 101 Moriori people left out of 2000 who had survived in 1863.[331] | 95% of the Moriori population was eradicated by the invasion from Taranaki, a group of people from the Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama iwi.[332][333] All were enslaved and many were cannibalised.[334] The Moriori language is now extinct.[331][335] | ||||
Massacre of Salsipuedes | Uruguay | 1831 | 40[336] | 40 | |
The Massacre of Salsipuedes was a genocidal attack carried out on 11 April 1831 by the Uruguayan Army, led by Fructuoso Rivera, as the culmination of the state's efforts to eradicate the Charrúa from Uruguay.[337][338] | |||||
Trail of Tears | Southeastern United States | 1830 | 1850 | 12,000[339] | 16,000[339] |
The Trail of Tears was the forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the "Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850, and the additional thousands of Native Americans within that were ethnically cleansed by the United States government.[340] A variety of scholars have classified the Trail of Tears as either a genocide in and of itself,[N 8] or as a genocidal act within the broader genocide of Native Americans.[347][N 9] | Figures for the number of deaths per Native American group that was forcibly relocated can be found at Trail of Tears § Statistics. | ||||
Black War (genocide of Aboriginal Tasmanians) | Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) | 1825 | 1832 | 400 [362] | 1,000 [362] |
The extinction of Aboriginal Tasmanians was called an archetypal case of genocide by Rafael Lemkin[363] among other historians, a view supported by more recent genocide scholars like Ben Kiernan who covered it in his book Blood and Soil: A History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur. This extinction also includes the Black War, which would make the war an act of genocide.[364] Historians like Keith Windschuttle among other historians disagree with this interpretation in discourse known as the History wars. | ~100%[364] | ||||
1804 Haitian massacre | Haiti | 1804 | 3,000[365] | 5,000[365] | |
The 1804 Haitian massacre is considered to be a genocide by many scholars,[366][367] as it was intended to destroy the Franco-Haitian population following the Haitian Revolution. The massacre was ordered by King Jean-Jacques Dessalines to remove the remainder of the white population from Haiti, and lasted from January to 22 April 1804. During the massacre, entire families were tortured and killed, and by the end of it, Haiti's white population was virtually non-existent.[368][369] | |||||
Dzungar genocide | Dzungaria, Qing dynasty China | 1755 | 1758 | 480,000[370] | 600,000[370] |
The Dzungar genocide was the mass extermination of the Mongol Dzungar people by the Qing dynasty.[371][372] The Qianlong Emperor ordered the genocide after the rebellion in 1755 by Dzungar leader Amursana against Qing rule, after the dynasty first conquered the Dzungar Khanate with Amursana's support. The genocide was perpetrated by Manchu generals of the Qing army, supported by Turkic oasis dwellers (now known as Uyghurs) who rebelled against Dzungar rule. | 80% of 600,000 Zungharian Oirats killed[g] | ||||
Taíno genocide | Hispaniola | 1492 | 1514 | 68,000[377] | 968,000[377] |
The Taíno genocide refers to the extermination of the indigenous population of Hispaniola due to forced labor and exploitation by the Spanish. Raphael Lemkin (coiner of the term genocide) considers Spain's abuses of the native population of the Americas to constitute cultural and even outright genocide including the abuses of the Encomienda system. He described slavery as "cultural genocide par excellence" noting "it is the most effective and thorough method of destroying culture, of desocializing human beings." He considers colonists guilty due to failing to halt the abuses of the system despite royal orders. He also notes the sexual abuse of Spanish colonizers of Native women as acts of "biological genocide."[378] University of Hawaii historian David Stannard describes the encomienda as a genocidal system which "had driven many millions of native peoples in Central and South America to early and agonizing deaths."[379] Yale University's genocide studies program supports this view regarding abuses in Hispaniola.[377] Andrés Reséndez argues that even though the Spanish were aware of the spread of smallpox, they made no mention of it until 1519, a quarter century after Columbus arrived in Hispaniola.[380] Instead he contends that enslavement in gold and silver mines was the primary reason why the Native American population of Hispaniola dropped so significantly[381][380] and that even though disease was a factor, the native population would have rebounded the same way Europeans did during the Black Death if it were not for the constant enslavement they were subject to.[380] According to anthropologist Jason Hickel, a third of Arawak workers died every six months from lethal forced labor in the mines.[382] | 68% to over 96% of the Taíno population perished under Spanish rule.[377] | ||||
Albigensian Crusade (Cathar genocide) | Languedoc (now France) | 1209 | 1229 | 200,000[383] | 1,000,000[384] |
The Albigensian Crusade was a 20-year military campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism, a Christian sect, in Languedoc, in southern France. The Catholic Church considered them heretics and ordered that they should be completely eradicated.[385] Raphael Lemkin referred to the Albigensian Crusade as "one of the most conclusive cases of genocide in religious history".[386] Kurt Jonassohn and Karin Solveig Björnson describe it as "the first ideological genocide."[387] |
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