This article lists incidents that have been termed
ethnic cleansing by some academic or legal experts. Not all experts agree on every case, particularly since there are a variety of
definitions of the term ethnic cleansing. When claims of ethnic cleansing are made by non-experts (e.g. journalists or politicians) they are noted.
Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern periods
Antiquity
* 146 BC: The
Battle of Carthage was the main engagement of the
Third Punic War
The Third Punic War (149–146 BC) was the third and last of the Punic Wars fought between Carthage and Rome. The war was fought entirely within Carthaginian territory, in modern northern Tunisia. When the Second Punic War ended in 201 ...
between the
Punic
The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of t ...
city of
Carthage
Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the cla ...
in what is now the country of
Tunisia
)
, image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
, image_map2 =
, capital = Tunis
, largest_city = capital
, ...
and the
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Ki ...
. It was a siege operation, starting sometime between 149 and 148 BC, and ending in the spring of 146 BC with the sack and complete destruction of the city of Carthage. In the spring of 146 BC, the Romans broke through the city wall. Eventually, after hours upon hours of house-to-house fighting, the Carthaginians surrendered. An estimated 50,000 surviving inhabitants were sold into slavery. The city was then leveled. The land surrounding Carthage was eventually declared
ager publicus
The ''ager publicus'' (; "public land") is the Latin name for the public land of Ancient Rome. It was usually acquired via the means of expropriation from enemies of Rome.
History
In the earliest periods of Roman expansion in central Italy, th ...
(public land), and it was shared between local farmers, and Roman and Italian ones.
*: During the
Third Jewish-Roman War, Roman forces under the command of
Hadrian killed over 580,000
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
and razed over 985
Judean
Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous sou ...
villages. The campaign has widely been described as a Genocide.
* 350 AD: Ancient Chinese texts record that General
Ran Min
Ran Min (; died 352), also known as Shi Min (石閔), posthumously honored by the Former Yan as Heavenly King Wudao of (Ran) Wei ((冉)魏武悼天王), courtesy name Yongzeng (永曾), nickname Jinu (棘奴), was a military leader during the er ...
ordered the extermination of the
Wu Hu, especially the
Jie people, during the
Wei–Jie war in the fourth century AD. People with racial characteristics such as high-bridged noses and bushy beards were killed; in total, 200,000 were reportedly massacred.
Middle Ages
*1069-1070
William the Conqueror
William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...
devastated
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...
in what is now known as the
Harrying of the North. During the Campaign, William pillaged and destroyed numerous towns and cities; destroying all of the region's food supplies with the intent to starve its population during the winter. Only a quarter of Northern England's population remained after the war. Some scholars have suggested that the Harrying of the North could qualify as a Genocide.
* 1282
Sicilian Vespers
The Sicilian Vespers ( it, Vespri siciliani; scn, Vespiri siciliani) was a successful rebellion on the island of Sicily that broke out at Easter 1282 against the rule of the French-born king Charles I of Anjou, who had ruled the Kingdom of ...
(Italian: Vespri siciliani; Sicilian: Vespiri siciliani) is the name which is given to the successful rebellion which broke out on the island of Sicily on the Easter of 1282. The rebels sought to end the rule of the French/Capetian king
Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
, who had ruled the Kingdom of Sicily since 1266. Within six weeks, three thousand French men and women were slain by the rebels, and the government of King Charles lost control of the island. It was the beginning of the War of the Sicilian Vespers.
![Expulsion judios-en](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Expulsion_judios-en.svg)
* 1290 AD:
Edward I of England
Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vas ...
expelled all of the Jews who were living in England in 1290. Hundreds of Jewish elders were executed.
* 1250–1500 AD: From the
13th to the 16th century, many European countries expelled the Jews from their territories on at least 15 occasions. Spain's expulsion of the Jews was preceded by expulsions which occurred in England, France and some German states, along with expulsions which also occurred in many other countries, and it was succeeded by at least five more expulsions.
Renaissance
* 1492–1614 AD: As a result of
religious persecution, up to a quarter million Jews in Spain converted to
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, and those who refused (between 40,000 and 70,000) were expelled in 1492 following the
Alhambra Decree. Those who did convert were subject to legal discrimination under the
Limpieza de sangre
The concept of (), (, ) or (), literally "cleanliness of blood" and meaning "blood purity", was an early system of racialized discrimination used in early modern Spain and Portugal.
The label referred to those who were considered "Old Chri ...
system, which privileged
Old Christians over
New Christians
New Christian ( es, Cristiano Nuevo; pt, Cristão-Novo; ca, Cristià Nou; lad, Christiano Muevo) was a socio-religious designation and legal distinction in the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire. The term was used from the 15th century ...
. Suspicion of many of the converts continuing to practice Judaism, called
Judaism in secret, led to the
Inquisition
The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...
. Shortly after the practice of Islam was outlawed and all of Spain's Muslims became nominally Christian. The descendants of these converted Muslims were called
Moriscos
Moriscos (, ; pt, mouriscos ; Spanish for "Moorish") were former Muslims and their descendants whom the Roman Catholic church and the Spanish Crown commanded to convert to Christianity or face compulsory exile after Spain outlawed the ope ...
. After the 1571 suppression of the
Morisco Revolt
Moriscos (, ; pt, mouriscos ; Spanish for "Moorish") were former Muslims and their descendants whom the Roman Catholic church and the Spanish Crown commanded to convert to Christianity or face compulsory exile after Spain outlawed the open p ...
in the
Alpujarras
The Alpujarra (, Arabic: ''al-bussarat'') is a natural and historical region in Andalusia, Spain, on the south slopes of the Sierra Nevada and the adjacent valley. The average elevation is above sea level. It extends over two provinces, ...
region, almost 80,000 Moriscos were relocated to other parts of Spain and some 270 villages and hamlets were repopulated with settlers brought from other regions. This was followed by a general
Expulsion of the Moriscos
The Expulsion of the Moriscos ( es, Expulsión de los moriscos) was decreed by King Philip III of Spain on April 9, 1609. The Moriscos were descendants of Spain's Muslim population who had been forced to convert to Christianity. Since the Span ...
between 1609 and 1614 which was nominally applied to the entire Spanish realm, but was carried out most thoroughly in the eastern region of Valencia. Although its overall success in terms of implementation is subject to academic debate and did not involve widespread violence, it is considered one of the first episodes of state-sponsored ethnic cleansing in the modern western world.
*1556–1620:
Plantations of Ireland. Land in
Laois
County Laois ( ; gle, Contae Laoise) is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and in the province of Leinster. It was known as Queen's County from 1556 to 1922. The modern county takes its name from Loígis, a medi ...
,
Offaly
County Offaly (; ga, Contae Uíbh Fhailí) is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the province of Leinster. It is named after the ancient Kingdom of Uí Failghe. It was formerly known as King's County, in h ...
,
Munster and parts of
Ulster
Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...
was seized by the English crown and colonised with English settlers. Ireland has been described as a "testing ground" for British colonialism, with the confiscation of land and expulsion of native Irish from their homelands being a rehearsal for the expulsion of the Native Americans by British settlers.
* 1652 AD: After the
Cromwellian conquest of Ireland and
Act of Settlement
The Act of Settlement is an Act of the Parliament of England that settled the succession to the English and Irish crowns to only Protestants, which passed in 1701. More specifically, anyone who became a Roman Catholic, or who married one, bec ...
in 1652, the whole post-war Cromwellian settlement of Ireland has been characterised by historians such as Mark Levene and
Alan Axelrod
Alan Axelrod (born 1952) is a prolific author of history, business and management books. As of October 2018, he had written more than 150 books. Axelrod resides in Atlanta, Georgia.
Axelrod received his doctorate in English from the University o ...
as ethnic cleansing, in that it sought to remove Irish
Catholics from the eastern part of the country, but others such as the historian
Tim Pat Coogan have described the actions of Cromwell and his subordinates as
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
.
[
*1755–1764 AD: During the ]French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
, the Nova Scotia colonial government, aided by New England troops, instituted a systematic removal of the French Catholic Acadian population of Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
– eventually removing thousands of settlers from the region and relocating them to areas in the Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th cent ...
, Britain and France. Many eventually moved and settled in Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
and became known as Cajuns
The Cajuns (; French: ''les Cadjins'' or ''les Cadiens'' ), also known as Louisiana '' Acadians'' (French: ''les Acadiens''), are a Louisiana French ethnicity mainly found in the U.S. state of Louisiana.
While Cajuns are usually described a ...
. Many scholars have described the subsequent death of over 50% of the deported Acadian population as an ethnic cleansing.
19th century
* Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the first ruler of an independent Haiti, ordered the killing of the remaining white population of French creoles on Haiti by instigating the 1804 Haiti Massacre
The 1804 Haiti massacre also known as the 1804 Haitian Genocide or simply the Haitian Genocide was carried out by Afro-Haitian soldiers, mostly former slaves, under orders from Jean-Jacques Dessalines against the remaining European population in ...
.
* On 26 May 1830, president Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame as ...
of the United States signed the Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law on May 28, 1830, by United States President Andrew Jackson. The law, as described by Congress, provided "for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for ...
which resulted in the Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the " Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government. As part of the Indian removal, members of the Cherokee, ...
.
*Michael Mann, basing his figures on those provided by Justin McCarthy, states that between 1821 and 1922, a large number of Muslims were expelled from Southeast Europe
Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe (SEE) is a geographical subregion of Europe, consisting primarily of the Balkans. Sovereign states and territories that are included in the region are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia (a ...
as Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
, Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...
and Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...
gained their independence from the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
. Mann describes these events as "murderous ethnic cleansing on a stupendous scale not previously seen in Europe." These countries sought to expand their territory against the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
, which culminated in the Balkan Wars of the early 20th century. After each Russo-Turkish War
The Russo-Turkish wars (or Ottoman–Russian wars) were a series of twelve wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 20th centuries. It was one of the longest series of military conflicts in European histo ...
, the Russians engaged in ethnic cleansing in the Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (country), Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range ...
. After the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) some 750,000 Ottoman Muslims disappeared from their native places. Some 210,000–310,000 civilian Bulgarians were slaughtered during the same war and the Bulgarian Horrors in 1876, and 100,000 fled. In the previous Russo-Turkish War
The Russo-Turkish wars (or Ottoman–Russian wars) were a series of twelve wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 20th centuries. It was one of the longest series of military conflicts in European histo ...
s as a result of voluntary migration and ethnic cleansing an emigrant community of Bessarabian Bulgarians
The Bessarabian Bulgarians ( bg, бесарабски българи, ''besarabski bǎlgari'', ro, bulgari basarabeni, uk, бесарабські болгари, ''bessarabski bolháry'') are a Bulgarian minority group of the historical region ...
was formed. Some 200,000 Bulgarians had emigrated from the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
between 1768 and 1812, until 1870 another 400,000 Bulgarians emigrated, mainly prompted by terror and ethnic cleansing in Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...
, while 200,000 were killed. Partly as a result of ethnic cleansing some 250,000 Bulgarians immigrated to Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire between 1878 and 1912.
*In 2005, the historian Gary Clayton Anderson of the University of Oklahoma
, mottoeng = "For the benefit of the Citizen and the State"
, type = Public research university
, established =
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $2.7billion (2021)
, pr ...
published ''The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1830–1875''. This book repudiates traditional historians, such as Walter Prescott Webb
Walter Prescott Webb (April 3, 1888 in Panola County, Texas – March 8, 1963 near Austin, Texas) was an American historian noted for his groundbreaking work on the American West. As president of the Texas State Historical Association, he la ...
and Rupert N. Richardson, who viewed the settlement of Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
by the displacement of the native populations as a healthful development. Anderson writes that at the time of the outbreak of the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, when the population of Texas was nearly 600,000, the still-new state was "a very violent place. ... Texans mostly blamed Indians for the violence – an unfair indictment, since a series of terrible droughts had virtually incapacitated the Plains Indians, making them incapable of extended warfare." ''The Conquest of Texas'' was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
* The nomadic Roma people have been expelled from European countries several times.
* The Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
was the subject of several cases of ethnic and religious cleansing against minorities, specially Catholics (Poles and Lithuanians), Lutherans (Latvians and Estonians), Jews (Pale of Settlement
The Pale of Settlement (russian: Черта́ осе́длости, '; yi, דער תּחום-המושבֿ, '; he, תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב, ') was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 19 ...
) and Muslims. The heaviest event was the Circassian genocide
The Circassian genocide, or Tsitsekun, was the Russian Empire's systematic mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and expulsion of 80–97% of the Circassian population, around 800,000–1,500,000 people, during and after the Russo-Circassian War ( ...
in 1872.
* The Expulsion of the Albanians, 1877–1878
The Expulsion of Albanians 1877–1878 refers to events of forced migration of Albanian populations from areas that became incorporated into the Principality of Serbia and Principality of Montenegro in 1878. These wars, alongside the larger Ru ...
refers to events of forced migration
Forced displacement (also forced migration) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of persecution, conflict, g ...
of Albanian populations from areas that became incorporated into the Principality of Serbia
The Principality of Serbia ( sr-Cyrl, Књажество Србија, Knjažestvo Srbija) was an autonomous state in the Balkans that came into existence as a result of the Serbian Revolution, which lasted between 1804 and 1817. Its creation wa ...
and Principality of Montenegro
The Principality of Montenegro ( sr, Књажевина Црна Горa, Knjaževina Crna Gora) was a principality in Southeastern Europe that existed from 13 March 1852 to 28 August 1910. It was then proclaimed a kingdom by Nikola I, who then ...
in 1878. These wars, alongside the larger Russo-Ottoman War (1877–78) ended in defeat and substantial territorial losses for the Ottoman Empire which was formalised at the Congress of Berlin
The Congress of Berlin (13 June – 13 July 1878) was a diplomatic conference to reorganise the states in the Balkan Peninsula after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, which had been won by Russia against the Ottoman Empire. Represented at th ...
. This expulsion was part of the wider persecution of Muslims in the Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
during the geopolitical and territorial decline of the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
. Although most of these Albanians were expelled by Serbian forces, a small presence was allowed to remain in the Jablanica valley where their descendants live today.[. "As these Niš refugees waited for acknowledgment from locals, they took measures to ensure that they were properly accommodated by often confiscating food stored in towns. They also simply appropriated lands and began to build shelter on them. A number of cases also point to banditry in the form of livestock raiding and "illegal" hunting in communal forests, all parts of refugees' repertoire... At this early stage of the crisis, such actions overwhelmed the Ottoman state, with the institution least capable of addressing these issues being the newly created Muhacirin Müdüriyeti... Ignored in the scholarship, these acts of survival by desperate refugees constituted a serious threat to the established Kosovar communities. The leaders of these communities thus spent considerable efforts lobbying the Sultan to do something about the refugees. While these Niš muhacirs would in some ways integrate into the larger regional context, as evidenced later, they, and a number of other Albanian-speaking refugees streaming in for the next 20 years from Montenegro and Serbia, constituted a strong opposition block to the Sultan's rule."; p.53. "One can observe that in strategically important areas, the new Serbian state purposefully left the old Ottoman laws intact. More important, when the state wished to enforce its authority, officials felt it necessary to seek the assistance of those with some experience, using the old Ottoman administrative codes to assist judges make rulings. There still remained, however, the problem of the region being largely depopulated as a consequence of the wars... Belgrade needed these people, mostly the landowners of the productive farmlands surrounding these towns, back. In subsequent attempts to lure these economically vital people back, while paying lip-service to the nationalist calls for "purification," Belgrade officials adopted a compromise position that satisfied both economic rationalists who argued that Serbia needed these people and those who wanted to separate "Albanians" from "Serbs." Instead of returning to their "mixed" villages and towns of the previous Ottoman era, these "Albanians," "Pomaks," and "Turks" were encouraged to move into concentrated clusters of villages in Masurica, and Gornja Jablanica that the Serbian state set up for them. For this "repatriation" to work, however, authorities needed the cooperation of local leaders to help persuade members of their community who were refugees in Ottoman territories to "return." In this regard, the collaboration between Shahid Pasha and the Serbian regime stands out. An Albanian who commanded the Sofia barracks during the war, Shahid Pasha negotiated directly with the future king of Serbia, Prince Milan Obrenović, to secure the safety of those returnees who would settle in the many villages of Gornja Jablanica. To help facilitate such collaborative ventures, laws were needed that would guarantee the safety of these communities likely to be targeted by the rising nationalist elements infiltrating the Serbian army at the time. Indeed, throughout the 1880s, efforts were made to regulate the interaction between exiled Muslim landowners and those local and newly immigrant farmers working their lands. Furthermore, laws passed in early 1880 began a process of managing the resettlement of the region that accommodated those refugees who came from Austrian-controlled Herzegovina and from Bulgaria. Cooperation, in other words, was the preferred form of exchange within the borderland, not violent confrontation."][.][."Në kohët e sotme fshatra të Jabllanicës, të banuara kryesisht me shqiptare, janë këto: Tupalla, Kapiti, Gërbavci, Sfirca, Llapashtica e Epërrne. Ndërkaq, fshatra me popullsi te përzier me shqiptar, malazezë dhe serbë, jane këto: Stara Banja, Ramabanja, Banja e Sjarinës, Gjylekreshta (Gjylekari), Sijarina dhe qendra komunale Medvegja. Dy familje shqiptare ndeshen edhe në Iagjen e Marovicës, e quajtur Sinanovë, si dhe disa familje në vetë qendrën e Leskovcit. Vllasa është zyrtarisht lagje e fshatit Gërbavc, Dediqi, është lagje e Medvegjes dhe Dukati, lagje e Sijarinës. Në popull konsiderohen edhe si vendbanime të veçanta. Kështu qendron gjendja demografike e trevës në fjalë, përndryshe para Luftës se Dytë Botërore Sijarina dhe Gjylekari ishin fshatra me populisi të perzier, bile në këtë te fundit ishin shumë familje serbe, kurse tani shumicën e përbëjnë shqiptarët. [In contemporary times, villages in the Jablanica area, inhabited mainly by Albanians, are these: Tupale, Kapiti, Grbavce, Svirca, Gornje Lapaštica. Meanwhile, the mixed villages populated by Albanians, Montenegrins and Serbs, are these: Stara Banja, Ravna Banja, Sjarinska Banja, Đulekrešta (Đulekari) Sijarina and the municipal center Medveđa. Two Albanian families are also encountered in the neighborhood of Marovica called Sinanovo, and some families in the center of Leskovac. Vllasa is formally a neighborhood of the village Grbavce, Dedići is a neighborhood of Medveđa and Dukati, a neighborhood of Sijarina. So this is the demographic situation in question that remains, somewhat different before World War II as Sijarina and Đulekari were villages with mixed populations, even in this latter settlement were many Serb families, and now the majority is made up of Albanians.]"]
* From 1894 to 1896, in an effort to Islamization, islamize the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
, Sultan Abdul Hamid II ordered the killing of ethnic Armenians (along with other Christian minorities) living in the Ottoman Empire, based on their religion. These killings later became known as the Hamidian massacres, named after Sultan Abdul Hamid II. It has been estimated that the total number of people killed ranges from 80,000 to 300,000.
* Beginning from about 1848
1848 is historically famous for the wave of revolutions, a series of widespread struggles for more liberal governments, which broke out from Brazil to Hungary; although most failed in their immediate aims, they significantly altered the polit ...
, and extending into the 20th century, the residents of Silesia
Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...
have been expelled by various governments as their homeland has come under the rule of different states.
* From 1885 and 1890, 30,000 ethnic Poles were expelled from Prussian state in the German Empire, due an anti-Polish and anti-Catholic sentiment
Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics or opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and/or its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Prussia, Scotland, and the Uni ...
in Prussian people and authorities.
20th century
1900s–1910s
*The Herero and Namaqua genocide
The Herero and Namaqua genocide or the Herero and Nama genocide was a campaign of ethnic extermination and collective punishment waged by the German Empire against the Herero (Ovaherero) and the Nama in German South West Africa (now Namibia). I ...
was a campaign of racial extermination and collective punishment that the German Empire undertook in German South West Africa (modern-day Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
) against the Herero, Nama and San people. It is considered the first genocide of the 20th century. It took place between 1904 and 1907 during the Herero Wars.
*During the Balkan Wars ethnic cleansings were carried out in Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
, Macedonia, Sanjak
Sanjaks (liwāʾ) (plural form: alwiyāʾ)
* Armenian: նահանգ (''nahang''; meaning "province")
* Bulgarian: окръг (''okrǔg''; meaning "county", "province", or "region")
* el, Διοίκησις (''dioikēsis'', meaning "province" ...
and Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...
, at first, they were committed against the Muslim population, but later, they were also committed against Christians
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ ...
, villages were burned and people were massacred. The Bulgarians
Bulgarians ( bg, българи, Bǎlgari, ) are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and the rest of Southeast Europe.
Etymology
Bulgarians derive their ethnonym from the Bulgars. Their name is not completely unders ...
, Serbs
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language.
The majority of Serbs live in their na ...
and Greeks
The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...
burned villages and massacred Turkish civilians, but since then, the population of the Turkish-majority areas of the Bulgarian-occupied areas has remained almost unchanged.[ The Turks usually massacred Bulgarian and Greek males who lived in the areas which they reoccupied, but they did not massacre any Greeks during the ]Second Balkan War
The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 ( O.S.) / 29 (N.S.) June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies r ...
, the women and children were also raped and frequently slaughtered during each massacre.[Mozjes, Paul. Balkan ''Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century.'' p. 34, 35] During the Second Balkan War
The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 ( O.S.) / 29 (N.S.) June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies r ...
, an ethnic cleansing campaign was carried out by the Ottoman Army
The military of the Ottoman Empire ( tr, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun silahlı kuvvetleri) was the armed forces of the Ottoman Empire.
Army
The military of the Ottoman Empire can be divided in five main periods. The foundation era covers the ...
and Turkish Bashi-bazouk
A bashi-bazouk ( ota, باشی بوزوق , , , roughly "leaderless" or "disorderly") was an irregular soldier of the Ottoman army, raised in times of war. The army chiefly recruited Albanians and Circassians as bashi-bazouks, but recruits ...
s exterminated the whole Bulgarian population of the Ottoman Adrianople Vilayet
The Vilayet of Adrianople or Vilayet of Edirne ( ota, ولايت ادرنه; ''Vilâyet-i Edirne'') was a first-level administrative division ( vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire.
This vilayet was split between Turkey and Greece in 1923, culminating ...
(an estimated 300,000 people before the war) and displacing the survivors of the massacres (60,000). Under Greek occupation, Bulgarian Macedonians were persecuted, expelled from their homes and forced to move to regions of Greece which are located north of the Bulgarian border. The Bulgarians had expelled 100,000 Greeks from Macedonia and West Thrace before the territories were returned to Greece. Massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars killed 25,000 of them. 18,000 Bulgarian civilians were killed in Macedonia but in Greek Macedonia
Macedonia (; el, Μακεδονία, Makedonía ) is a geographic and former administrative region of Greece, in the southern Balkans. Macedonia is the largest and Greek geographic region, with a population of 2.36 million in 2020. It is ...
, a quarter of the region's entire Muslim and Bulgarian population was spared. In addition to the dead, the aftermath of the war counts 890,000 people who permanently left their homes, of whom 400,000 fled to Turkey, 170,000 fled to Greece, 150,000 or 280,000 fled to Bulgaria. The population size of Bulgarians in Macedonia was mostly reduced by forceful assimilation campaigns through terror, following the ban of the use of the Bulgarian language and declarations which are named "Declare yourself a Serb or die.", signers were required to renounce their Bulgarian identity on paper in Serbia and Greece.
*The 1914 Greek deportations have been described as an ethnic cleansing campaign by scholars Matthias Bjørnlund and Taner Akçam
Altuğ Taner Akçam (born 1953) is a Turkish-German historian and sociologist. During the 1990s, he was the first Turkish scholar to acknowledge the Armenian genocide, and has written several books on the genocide, such as '' A Shameful Act'' ( ...
.
*The Armenian genocide
The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through t ...
which occurred during World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
was implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacres and forced labor, and the deportation of women, children, the elderly and the infirm to the Syrian Desert on death march
A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinguished in this way from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Conven ...
es. In addition to being described as a genocide, it is often described as an ethnic cleansing campaign in academic literature.
* The Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
regime killed or deported an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 Don Cossacks during the Russian Civil War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Russian Civil War
, partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I
, image =
, caption = Clockwise from top left:
{{flatlist,
*Soldiers ...
, in 1919–1920. Geoffrey Hosking Geoffrey, Geoffroy, Geoff, etc., may refer to:
People
* Geoffrey (name), including a list of people with the name
* Geoffroy (surname), including a list of people with the name
* Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1095–c. 1155), clergyman and one of the m ...
stated "It could be argued that the Red
Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...
policy towards the Don Cossacks amounted to ethnic cleansing. It was short-lived, however, and soon abandoned because it did not fit with normal Leninist theory and practice".
1920s–1930s
*The Iraqi army waged a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Assyrian
Assyrian may refer to:
* Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia.
* Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire.
** Early Assyrian Period
** Old Assyrian Period
** Middle Assyrian Empire
** Neo-Assyrian Empire
* Assyrian ...
villagers who lived in northern Iraq with the assistance of Kurdish and Arab tribes. The number of deaths ranged from 600 to 3,000. Around one third of the Assyrians later sought refuge in Syria.
*In 1920–21, the Greek army on the Yalova-Gemlik Peninsula burned dozens of Turkish/Muslim villages, engaging in large-scale violence and ethnic cleansing.
*The Population exchange between Greece and Turkey
The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey ( el, Ἡ Ἀνταλλαγή, I Antallagí, ota, مبادله, Mübâdele, tr, Mübadele) stemmed from the "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" signed at ...
has been described as an ethnic cleansing. In 1928, 1,104,216 Ottoman refugees were living in Greece. 400,000 Muslims left Greece. The Greek genocide
The Greek genocide (, ''Genoktonia ton Ellinon''), 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 ...
resulted in the murder of 450,000–750,000 victims.
*Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...
, in which the Imperial Japanese Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...
invaded China in the 1930s. More than 2.7 million Chinese were killed, civilians and military personnel alike. The Three Alls Policy
The Three Alls Policy (, ja, 三光作戦 Sankō Sakusen) was a Japanese scorched earth policy adopted in China during World War II, the three "alls" being . This policy was designed as retaliation against the Chinese for the Communist-led Hundr ...
("Kill all, Burn all, Seize all") followed by the Imperial Japanese Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...
resulted in many of these deaths.
*Pacification of Libya
The Second Italo-Senussi War, also referred to as the Pacification of Libya, was a conflict that occurred during the Italian colonization of Libya between Italian military forces (composed mainly of colonial troops from Libya, Eritrea, and ...
, Italian authorities committed ethnic cleansing in the Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica ( ) or Kyrenaika ( ar, برقة, Barqah, grc-koi, Κυρηναϊκή παρχίαKurēnaïkḗ parkhíā}, after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between ...
region of Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...
by forcibly removing and relocating 100,000 people of the Cyrenaican indigenous population from their valuable land property that was slated to be given to Italian settlers.
*The Chinese Kuomintang
The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
Generals Ma Qi
Ma Qi (, Xiao'erjing: ; 23 September 1869 – 5 August 1931) was a Chinese Muslim General in early 20th-century China.
Early life
A Hui, Ma was born on 23 September 1869 in Daohe, now part of Linxia, Gansu, China. His father was Ma Haiyan an ...
and Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang (1903 – 31 July 1975) (, Xiao'erjing: ) was a prominent Muslim Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era, ruling the province of Qinghai. His rank was Lieutenant-general.
General Ma started an industrialization pro ...
launched campaigns of expulsion in Qinghai
Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...
and Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...
against ethnic Tibetans. The actions of these Generals have been called Genocidal by some authors.
*However, that was not the last Labrang saw of General Ma. In 1928, Ma Qi waged a war against the Tibetan Ngoloks, a war which author Dinesh Lal calls "genocidal", inflicting a defeat upon them and seizing the Labrang Buddhist monastery. The Muslim forces looted and ravaged the monastery again.
*Authors Uradyn Erden Bulag called the events that follow as a Genocide while David Goodman named them ethnic cleansing: The Republic of China-supported Ma Bufang
Ma Bufang (1903 – 31 July 1975) (, Xiao'erjing: ) was a prominent Muslim Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era, ruling the province of Qinghai. His rank was Lieutenant-general.
General Ma started an industrialization pro ...
when he launched seven extermination expeditions into Golog, eliminating thousands of Tibetans. Some Tibetans counted the number of times he attacked them, remembering the seventh attack which made their lives impossible. Ma was highly anti-communist, and he and his army wiped out many Tibetans in the northeast and eastern Qinghai, and they also destroyed Tibetan Buddhist
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
Temples.
*The Holodomor (1932–1933) is considered by many historians as a genocidal famine perpetrated on the orders of Josef Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
that involved widespread ethnic cleansing of ethnic Ukrainians in Soviet Ukraine
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...
. Food and grain were forcibly seized from villages, the internal borders between Soviet Ukraine and the Russian SSR were sealed in order to prevent population movement; movement between villages and urban centers was also restricted. Both before and after the famine, Stalin's destruction of ethnic Ukrainians was extended to the Ukrainian intelligentsia, the Ukrainian political elite and Ukrainian Party officials. A ban on the Ukrainian language and widespread Russification was also instilled. An estimated 2.5 to 8 million Ukrainians were exterminated in the famine. After their liquidation, Stalin repopulated the territory with ethnic Russians.
*The Mexican Repatriation
The Mexican Repatriation ( es, link=no, Repatriación mexicana) was the repatriation and deportation of Mexicans and Mexican Americans to Mexico from the United States during the Great Depression between 1929 and 1939. Estimates of how many we ...
, which occurred from 1929 to 1939 in response to poverty and nativist fears triggered by the Great Depression in the United States, has been called ethnic cleansing by at least one scholar. An estimated forty to sixty percent of the 355,000 to 1 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans who were repatriated were birthright U.S. citizens - and overwhelmingly children. Voluntary repatriations were much more common than deportations. Legal scholar Kevin Johnson States that it meets modern legal standards for ethnic cleansing, arguing it involved the forced removal of an ethnic minority by the government.
*The deportation of 172,000 Soviet Koreans by the Soviet government in September 1937, in which Koreans were moved away from the Korean border and deported to Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
, where they were made to do forced labor
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
.
1940s
* The 1936-45 Romani genocide
The Romani Holocaust or the Romani genocide—also known as the ''Porajmos'' ( Romani pronunciation: , meaning "the Devouring"), the ''Pharrajimos'' meaning the hard times ("Cutting up", "Fragmentation", "Destruction"), and the ''Samudaripen'' ( ...
or the Porajmos: the killing of an estimated 130,565 Romani people by Nazi Germany, with some estimates ranging from 220,000 to 500,000.
* The 1938-45 Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, 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; ...
: The killing of an estimated 6 million Jews by the government of Germany both inside Germany and throughout German occupied territories, and some of its independent allies such as the governments of Romania, Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...
, and Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
(outside Bulgarian core territories).
* The 1941-45 Generalplan Ost
The ''Generalplan Ost'' (; en, Master Plan for the East), abbreviated GPO, was the Nazi German government's plan for the genocide and ethnic cleansing on a vast scale, and colonization of Central and Eastern Europe by Germans. It was to be under ...
by Nazi Germany, the massacre of almost all Central and Eastern European Jews, most Poles, Gypsies, Russian prisoners of war, along with an unknown but huge number of Russians, Byelorussians and Ukrainians in the German-occupied territories. It also resulted in millions of deaths in German extermination camps and the forced relocation of many civilians so German citizens could resettle in Eastern Europe.
* The 1941 June deportation
The June deportation ( et, juuniküüditamine, lv, jūnija deportācijas, lt, birželio trėmimai) was a mass deportation by the Soviet Union of tens of thousands of people from the territories occupied in 1940–1941: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuan ...
by the Soviet Union, deporting tens of thousands of people from occupied Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
to the farther reaches of the Soviet Union.
* The 1941 Farhud
''Farhud'' ( ar, الفرهود) was the pogrom or "violent dispossession" carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on June 1–2, 1941, immediately following the British victory in the Anglo-Iraqi War. The riots occurred in a ...
is the Name for the Violent Pogrom that engulfed Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
, Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
, targeted against Iraqi Jews
The history of the Jews in Iraq ( he, יְהוּדִים בָּבְלִים, ', ; ar, اليهود العراقيون, ) is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BC. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and mo ...
. The Massacre was inspired by Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
-Orchestrated Pogroms such as Kristallnacht
() or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation fro ...
. The Violence was put to end after 2 days by British-backed Iraqi Militants.
*Population transfers in the Soviet Union
From 1930 to 1952, the government of the Soviet Union, on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin under the direction of the NKVD official Lavrentiy Beria, forcibly transferred populations of various groups. These actions may be classified ...
during and after World War II on the orders of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
, including the deportation of the Karachays
The Deportation of the Karachays (), codenamed Operation Seagull, was the forced transfer by the Soviet government of the entire Karachay population of the North Caucasus to Central Asia, mostly the Kazakh and Kyrgyzstan SSR, in November 1943, ...
, deportation of the Balkars
The Deportation of the Balkars was the expulsion by the Soviet government of the entire Balkar population of the North Caucasus to Central Asia on March8, 1944, during World War II. The expulsion was ordered by NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria af ...
, deportation of the Chechens and Ingush
The deportation of the Chechens and Ingush ( ce, До́хадар, Махках дахар, inh, Мехках дахар), or Ardakhar Genocide ( ce, Ардахар Махках), and also known as Operation Lentil (russian: Чечевица ...
, deportation of the Meskhetian Turks
The deportation of the Meskhetian Turks (russian: Депортация турок-месхетинцев) was the forced transfer by the Soviet government of the entire Meskhetian Turk population from the Meskheti region of the Georgian Soviet ...
and the deportation of the Kalmyks
The Kalmyk deportations of 1943, codename Operation Ulusy () was the Soviet deportation of more than 93,000 people of Kalmyk nationality, and non-Kalmyk women with Kalmyk husbands, on 28–31 December 1943. Families and individuals were forci ...
. Nearly 3.5 million ethnic minorities were resettled during 1940–52.
* The 1939-44 Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany
The Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany during World War II was a massive operation consisting of the forced resettlement of over 1.7 million Poles from the territories of German-occupied Poland, with the aim of their Germanization (see Lebensr ...
and the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
following the defeat of Poland in the September Campaign
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week af ...
.
* The deportation of Romanians
The Romanians ( ro, români, ; dated exonym '' Vlachs'') are a Romance-speaking ethnic group. Sharing a common Romanian culture and ancestry, and speaking the Romanian language, they live primarily in Romania and Moldova. The 2011 Roman ...
from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina (1940–1941, 1944–1951), by the USSR to Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...
and Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
.
* The deportation of nearly 200,000 Crimean Tatars on 18 May 1944 to the Uzbek SSR and other parts of the Soviet Union.
* The expulsion of 14 million ethnic Germans from the Former eastern territories of Germany after World War II. This policy was decided at the Potsdam Conference by the victorious powers.
* At least 330,000 Serbs
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language.
The majority of Serbs live in their na ...
, 30,000 Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
and 30,000 Roma, and 12,000 Croats and Bosniaks were killed during the Independent State of Croatia, NDH (see Jasenovac concentration camp) (today Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina). The same number of Serbs were forced out of the NDH, from May 1941 to May 1945. The Ustase, Croatian Fascist regime managed to kill more than 45 000 Serbs, 12 000 or more Jews and approximately 16,000 Roma at the Jasenovac Concentration Camp.
* Chetnik atrocities against Bosniaks and Croats in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1941 to 1945 have been characterised as organised Chetnik war crimes in World War II#Genocide of Muslims and Croats, ethnic cleansing. It is estimated that around 32,000 Croats (20,000 from Croatia, and 12,000 from Bosnia) and 33,000 Bosniaks were killed.
* At least 40,000 Hungarians, Hungarian civilians were killed by Serbians in Vojvodina in an act of revenge (the so-called "Cold Days") in 1944.
* During World War II, in Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, Kosovo and Metohija, approximately 10,000 Serbs were killed by Nazi Germany, Nazi German soldiers and Albanian collaborators,[Serge Krizman, ''Maps of Yugoslavia at War'', Washington 1943.][: Kosta Nikolić, Nikola Žutić, Momčilo Pavlović, Zorica Špadijer: Историја за трећи разред гимназије природно-математичког смера и четврти разред гимназије општег и друштвено-језичког смера, Belgrade, 2002, p. 182.] and about 80[ to 100,000][Annexe I]
, by the Serbian Information Centre-London to a report of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs of the British House of Commons, House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. or more[ were ethnically cleansed.][ After World War II, the new communist authorities of Yugoslavia banned Serbians and Montenegrins expelled during the war from returning to their abandoned estates.
* During the four years of wartime occupation from 1941 to 1944, the Axis (German, Hungarian and Independent State of Croatia, NDH) forces committed numerous war crimes against the civilian population of Serbs, Roma and Jews in the former Yugoslavia: about 50,000 people in Vojvodina (north ]Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...
) (see Occupation of Vojvodina, 1941–1944) were murdered and about 280,000 were arrested, raped or tortured. The total number of people killed under Hungarian occupation in Bačka was 19,573, in Banat 7,513 (under German occupation) and in Syrmia 28,199 (under Croatian occupation).[Slobodan Ćurčić, ''Broj stanovnika Vojvodine'', Novi Sad, 1996 (pages 42, 43).]
*During the Axis occupation of Albania (1943–1944), the Albanian collaborationist organization Balli Kombëtar with Nazi Germany, Nazi German support mounted a major offensive in southern Albania (Northern Epirus) with devastating results: over 200 Greek populated towns and villages were burned down or destroyed, 2,000 Greeks in Albania, ethnic Greeks were killed, 5,000 imprisoned and 2,000 forced to concentration camps. Moreover, 30,000 people had to flee to nearby Greece during and after this period.
* Towards the end of World War II, nearly 14,000–25,000 ethnic Albanian Muslims were expelled from the coastal region of Epirus in northwestern Greece by the EDES paramilitary organization, supported by the state.
*During the Partition of India 6 million Muslims fled ethnic violence taking place in India to settle in what became Pakistan (and by 1971, Bangladesh) and 5 million Hindus and Sikhs fled from what became Pakistan and Bangladesh, to settle in India. The events which occurred during this time period have been described as ethnic cleansing by Ishtiaq Ahmed and by Barbara Metcalf, Barbara and Thomas R. Metcalf.
* In 1947, the 1947 Jammu Massacre, Jammu Massacre took place. The event has been described as ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir (princely state), Jammu and Kashmir.
* After the Indonesia, Republic of Indonesia achieved independence from the Netherlands in 1949, around 300,000 people, predominantly Indo people, Indos, or people of mixed Indonesian and Dutch ancestry, fled or were expelled.
* The 1949 Operation Priboi, March deportation by the Soviet Union, deporting tens of thousands of people from occupied Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
, Latvia and Lithuania to the farther reaches of the Soviet Union.
* In the aftermath of the Durban riots, 1949 Durban Riots (an inter-racial conflict between Zulu people, Zulus and Indian South Africans), hundreds of Indians fled Cato Manor.
* In Ethiopia the Harari people, Harari Muslims peacefully protested against religious oppression, however the state responded violently. Hundreds were arrested and the entire town of Harar was put under house arrest. The government also took control of many assets and estates belonging to the people. These events broke the Harari control of the city of Harar and 10,000 Hararis left the city.
* Italian war crimes against Slavs (particularly Croats and Slovenes), both within pre-war Italy and during World War II in Yugoslavia, such as the mass-killing of civilians, including within concentration camps, have also been classed as acts of ethnic cleansing. A particular example was Mario Roatta's war on the ethnic Slovenes, Slovene civil population in the Province of Ljubljana during Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946), Fascist Italy's occupation of Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia in accord with the 1920s speech by Benito Mussolini's speech:
* Foibe massacres against Italians
*Estimates of the Palestinian Refugee flight of 1948, More than 700,000 Palestinians, Palestinian Arabs – about half of prewar Mandatory Palestine, Palestine's Arab population – Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus, fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 Palestine war, 1947-1949 Palestine war, and between Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel, 400 and 600 Palestinian villages were destroyed. During the same conflict, the Jordan, Jordanian Army also besieged the Jewish Quarter (Jerusalem), Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, prompting the approximately 2000 Jews living there to flee.
1950s
* From 5–6 September 1955, the Istanbul pogrom or "Septembrianá"/"Σεπτεμβριανά", secretly backed by the Turkish government, was launched against the Greek population of Istanbul. The mob also attacked some History of the Jews in Turkey, Jewish and Armenians in Turkey, Armenian residents of the city. The event contributed greatly to the gradual extinction of the Greek minority in the city and throughout the entire country, which numbered 100,000 in 1924 after the Turko-Greek population exchange treaty. By 2006 there were only 2,500 Greeks living in Istanbul.
*The Jewish exodus from Muslim countries, the flight of over 850,000 History of the Jews under Muslim rule, Jews of the Islamic world, mainly Mizrahi Jews, Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews, Sephardic. Many Arab governments, such as History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi, Gaddafi's Libya, History of Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser, Nasserist Egypt, and Hafez al-Assad, Hafez al-Assad's Syria, confiscated Jewish bank accounts and property of Jews who had departed, in addition to placing laws restricting Jewish business. Several pogroms across the Arab world, possibly state-encouraged, harassed and threatened thousands of Jews into leaving their countries for Western nations, particularly Israel.
1960s
* On 5 July 1960, five days after the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo gained independence from Belgium, the Force Publique garrison near Léopoldville mutinied against its white officers and attacked numerous European targets. This caused fear amongst the approximately 100,000 white African, whites still resident in the Congo and led to their mass exodus from the country.
* Ne Win's rise to power in 1962 and his relentless persecution of "resident aliens" (immigrant groups not recognised as citizens of the Union of Burma) led to an exodus of some 300,000 Burmese Indians. They migrated to escape racial discrimination and wholesale nationalisation of private enterprises a few years later in 1964.
* As the National Liberation Front (Algeria), FLN fought for the independence of Algeria from France, it expelled the ''Pied-Noir'' population of European descent and History of the Jews in Algeria, Jews; most fled to France, where they had citizenship. In just a few months in 1962, 900,000 of these European descendants and native Jews had left the country.
* The 1962 Rajshahi massacres in East Pakistan (modern-day Bangladesh) witnessed the killing of minorities, mostly Persecution of Buddhists, Buddhists and Anti-Hindu sentiment, Hindus, by Muslims. More than 3,000 Kafir, non-Muslims were killed. In 1958, Ayub Khan (general), Ayub Khan came to power in Pakistan, and from the beginning the policy of the Ayub Regime was to cleanse East Pakistan of Bengali Hindus and other Freedom of religion in Bangladesh, minorities. There was also arson, rapes, and looting. This ethnic cleansing campaign resulted in the migration of 11,000 Santal people, Santhals and Rajbongshi people, Rajbanshis to India.
* Zanzibar expelled Arabs and Demographics of India, Indians from the nation in 1964.
* In 1964, the 1964 East Pakistan riots, 1964 East Pakistan Riots occurred which resulted in more than 10,000 Bengali Hindus being targeted and systematically killed by Bengali Muslims. In the village of Mainam near Nagaon in Rajshahi District all Hinduism, Hindus except 2 little girls were massacred. This resulted in more than 135,000 refugees. Hundreds of villages around Dhaka city were burnt to ashes. This left more than 100,000 Hindus homeless. 95% of the ruined houses belonged to Hindus who lived in Old Dhaka.
* In 1966, there was unrest in the northern part of Nigeria that led to the death of about 80,000 people. Those killed were originally from the South Eastern region of the country and this act was seen as an attack on the Igbo people. This led C. Odumegwu Ojukwu, the military governor of the Eastern region, to declare that region a Sovereign state, Biafra. The Nigerian Civil War began on 6 July 1967, but ended in 1970 with the help of the United Kingdom and China. Although there is relative peace in Nigeria, today, there is still some religious unrest in the North being caused by the Boko Haram group.
*The expulsion of the Chagossians from the Chagos Archipelago by the United Kingdom, at the request of the United States in order to establish a military base, started in 1968 and concluded in 1973.
1970s
* On 7 October 1970, shortly after Muammar Gaddafi came to power in Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...
, the Libyan government 1970 expulsion of Italians from Libya, forcibly expelled some 20,000 Italians who were living in the country, in retaliation for Italian colonization of Libya, Italy's 1911 colonization of the country. Thousands of Italians had all of their property and rights confiscated, and at the same time the Libyan government expropriated the property of Jewish exodus from the Muslim world#Libya, Libyan Jews who had previously left the country in the wake of the Arab-Israeli wars. In Libya, the expulsion was commemorated with a holiday known as the "Day of Revenge".
* During the Bangladesh War of Independence of 1971, the military of Pakistan 1971 Bangladesh genocide, carried out genocide killing between 300,000 and 3 million people and around 10 million Bengalis, mainly Hindus, fled the country. Additionally, many died in the poorly and hastily setup refugee camps in India. Furthermore, many intellectuals and other religious minorities were targeted by death squads and ''Razakar (Pakistan), razakars''. Thousands of temples were desecrated and thousands of women were raped.
* Idi Amin's regime Expulsion of Asians from Uganda, forced the expulsion in 1972 of Uganda's entire ethnic Non-resident Indian and person of Indian origin, Asian population, mostly of Indian people, Indian descent.
* There was an ethnic cleansing of the Greeks, Greek population of the areas under Turkish military occupation in Cyprus in 1974–76 during and after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This has been the subject of litigation in the European Court of Human Rights in cases including Loizidou v. Turkey and the European Court of Justice in cases like Apostolides v Orams.
* Following the U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam in 1973 and the communist victory two years later, the Kingdom of Laos's coalition government was overthrown by the communists. The Hmong people, who had actively supported the anti-communist government, became targets of retaliation and persecution. The government of Laos has been accused of committing Genocide against the Hmong, with up to 100,000 killed.
* The Communism, Communist Khmer Rouge government in Cambodia disproportionately targeted ethnic minority groups, including ethnic Chinese Cambodians, Chinese, Vietnamese Cambodians, Vietnamese and Thai people, Thais. In the late 1960s, an estimated 425,000 ethnic Overseas Chinese, Chinese lived in Cambodia; by 1984, as a result of Cambodian genocide, Khmer Rouge genocide and emigration, only about 61,400 Chinese remained in the country. The small Thai minority along the border was almost completely exterminated, only a few thousand managing to reach safety in Thailand. The Muslim Chams, Cham Minority suffered serious purges with as much as 80% of their population exterminated. The Khmer's racial supremacist ideology was responsible to this ethnic purge. A Khmer Rouge order stated that henceforth "The Cham nation no longer exists on Kampuchean soil belonging to the Khmer people, Khmers" (U.N. Doc. A.34/569 at 9).
* Subsequent waves of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people, Rohingya fled Burma and many refugees inundated neighbouring Bangladesh including 250,000 in 1978 as a result of the Operation Dragon King in Arakan.
* The Sino-Vietnamese War resulted in the discrimination and consequent migration of Vietnam's Hoa people, ethnic Chinese. Many of these people fled as "boat people". In 1978–79, some 250,000 ethnic Chinese left Vietnam by boat as refugees (many officially encouraged and assisted) or were expelled across the land border with China.
1980s
* In 1983, in Sri Lanka, Black July, Anti-Tamil Riots erupted over the City of Colombo, the Chief Target being Tamils, Tamil businessmen.
* In the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984, the ruling party Indian National Congress supporters formed large mobs and killed around 15000–30000 Sikhs around Delhi in what is known as the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots during the next four days. The mobs acting with the support of ruling party leaders used the Election voting list to identify Sikhs and kill them.
*In the 1987 and 1988 Anfal campaign, the Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
i Ba'ath Party, government under Saddam Hussein and headed by Ali Hassan al-Majid launched Al-Anfal Campaign, Al-Anfal against Kurdish people, Kurdish civilians in Iraqi Kurdistan, Northern Iraq. The Iraqi government Massacred 100,000 to 182,000 non-combatant civilians including women and children, and destroyed about 4,000 villages (out of 4,655) in Iraqi Kurdistan. Between April 1987 and August 1988, 250 towns and villages were exposed to chemical weapons, 1,754 schools were destroyed, along with 270 hospitals, 2,450 mosques, 27 churches; and around 90% of all Kurdish villages in the targeted areas were wiped out.
* Between 16 and 17 March 1988, the Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
i Ba'ath Party, government under Saddam Hussein carried out a Halabja poison gas attack, poison gas attack in the Kurdish people, Kurdish town of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan. Between 3,200 and 5,000 civilians died instantly, and between 7,000 and 10,000 civilians were injured, and thousands more would die in the following years from complications, diseases, and birth defects caused by the attack.
* Revival Process, The forced assimilation campaign during 1984–1985 directed against ethnic Turkish people, Turks by the Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
n State resulted in the mass emigration of some 360,000 Turks in Bulgaria, Bulgarian Turks to Turkey in 1989 has been characterized as ethnic cleansing.
* The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has resulted in the displacement of populations from both sides. Among the displaced are 700,000 Azerbaijanis and several Kurds from ethnic Armenian-controlled territories including Armenia and areas of Nagorno-Karabakh, more than 353,000 Armenians were forced to flee from territories controlled by Azerbaijan plus some 80,000 had to flee Armenian border territories.
* Since April 1989, some 70,000 black Mauritanians – members of the Fula people, Fula, Toucouleur people, Toucouleur, Wolof people, Wolof, Soninke people, Soninke and Bambara people, Bambara ethnic groups – have been expelled from Mauritania by the Mauritanian government.
* In 1989, after bloody pogroms against the Meskhetian Turks by Uzbeks in Central Asia's Ferghana Valley, nearly 90,000 Meskhetian Turks left Uzbekistan.
1990s
* In 1990, inter-ethnic tensions escalated in Bhutan, resulting in the flight of many Lhotshampa, or ethnic Nepalis, from Bhutan to Nepal, many of whom were expelled by the Bhutanese military. By 1996, over 100,000 Bhutanese refugees were living in refugee camps in Nepal. Many have since been resettled in Western nations. One reason for this expulsion was the desire of the Bhutanese government to remove a largely Hinduism, Hindu population and preserve its Buddhism, Buddhist culture and identity.
* In 1991, as part of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, during Operation Ring, Soviet troops and the predominantly Azerbaijani People, Azerbaijani soldiers in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, AzSSR OMON and army forcibly uprooted Armenians living in the 24 villages strewn across Shahumyan Province, Shahumyan to leave their homes and settle elsewhere in Nagorno-Karabakh or in the neighboring Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, Armenian SSR. Human rights organizations documented a wide number of human rights violations and abuses committed by Soviet and Azerbaijani forces and many of them properly characterised them as ethnic cleansing. These violations and abuses included forced deportations of civilians, unlawful killings, torture, kidnapping harassment, rape and the wanton seizure or destruction of property.[Доклад Правозащитного центра общества "Мемориал"](_blank)
НАРУШЕНИЯ ПРАВ ЧЕЛОВЕКА В ХОДЕ ПРОВЕДЕНИЯ ОПЕРАЦИЙ ВНУТРЕННИМИ ВОЙСКАМИ МВД СССР, СОВЕТСКОЙ АРМИЕЙ И МВД АЗЕРБАЙДЖАНА В РЯДЕ РАЙОНОВ АЗЕРБАЙДЖАНСКОЙ РЕСПУБЛИКИ В ПЕРИОД С КОНЦА АПРЕЛЯ ПО НАЧАЛО ИЮНЯ 1991 ГОДА
"On the Visit to the Armenian-Azerbaijani Border, May 25–29, 1991" Presented to the First International Sakharov Conference on Physics, Lebedev Institute, Moscow on 31 May 1991. Despite fierce protests, no measures were taken either to prevent the human rights abuses or to punish the perpetrators. Approximately 17,000 Armenians living in twenty-three of Shahumyan's villages were deported out of the region.
* In 1991, following a major crackdown on Rohingya people, Rohingya Muslims in Burma, 250,000 refugees took shelter in the Cox's Bazar district of neighboring Bangladesh.
* After the Gulf War in 1991, Kuwait conducted a Palestinian exodus from Kuwait (Gulf War), campaign of expulsion against the Palestinians living in the country, who before the war had numbered 400,000. Some 200,000 who had fled during the Iraqi occupation were banned from returning, while the remaining 200,000 were pressured into leaving by the authorities, who conducted a campaign of terror, violence, and economic pressure to get them to leave. The Kuwaiti Palestinians expelled from Kuwait moved to Jordan, where they had citizenship. The policy which partly led to this exodus was a response to the alignment of Palestine Liberation Organization, PLO leader Yasser Arafat with Saddam Hussein.
* As a result of the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War, about 100,000 ethnic Ossetians fled South Ossetia and Georgia proper, most across the border into North Ossetia. A further 23,000 ethnic Georgians fled South Ossetia and settled in other parts of Georgia (country), Georgia.
* According to Helsinki Watch, the campaign of ethnic-cleansing was orchestrated by the Ossetian militants, during the events of the Ossetian–Ingush conflict, which resulted in the Population transfer, expulsion of approximately 60,000 Ingush people, Ingush inhabitants from Prigorodny District.
* The widespread ethnic cleansing accompanying the Croatian War of Independence that was committed by Serb-led Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and rebel militia in the occupied areas of Croatia (self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina) (1991–1995). Large numbers of Croats and non-Serbs were removed, either by murder, deportation or by being forced to flee. According to the ICTY indictment against Slobodan Milošević, there was an expulsion of around 170,000 to 250,000 Croats and other non-Serbs from their home, in addition to an estimated 10,000 Croats that were also killed. Also, around 10,000 Croats left Vojvodina in 1992 due to persecution by Serb nationalists. Milan Martić, Milan Babić and Vojislav Šešelj were convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for persecution on racial, ethnic or religious ground, deportation and/or forcible displacement as a crime against humanity.
* In February 1992, hundreds of ethnic Azerbaijani people, Azeris and Meskhetian Turks are Khojaly massacre, massacred as Armenian troops capture the city of Khojaly (city), Khojaly in Nagorno-Karabakh.
*Ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian War, Widespread ethnic cleansing accompanied the Bosnian War, War in Bosnia (1992–1995). Large numbers of Croats and Bosniaks were forced to flee their homes by the Army of the Republika Srpska, large numbers of Serbs
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language.
The majority of Serbs live in their na ...
and Bosniaks by the Croatian Defence Council and Serbs
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language.
The majority of Serbs live in their na ...
and Croats by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[Committee on Foreign Relations, US Senate, ''The Ethnic Cleansing of Bosnia-Hercegovina'', (US Government Printing Office, 1992)] Beginning in 1991, political upheavals in the Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
displaced about 2,700,000 people by mid-1992, of which over 700,000 sought asylum in other parts of Europe. In September 1994, UNHCR representatives estimated around 80,000 non-Serbs out of 837,000 who initially lived on the Serb-controlled territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina before the war remained there; an estimated removal of 90% of the Bosniak and Croat inhabitants of Serb-coveted territory, almost all of whom were deliberately forced out of their homes. It also includes ethnic cleansing of non-Croats in the breakaway state the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia The ICTY convicted several officials for persecution, forced transfer and/or deportation, including Momčilo Krajišnik, Radoslav Brđanin, Stojan Župljanin, Mićo Stanišić, Biljana Plavšić, Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić.
* Exodus of between 100,000 and 200,000 Krajina Serbs during and after the Croatian Army's Operation Storm. Some investigators and academics describe this event as ethnic cleansing. Historian Marko Attila Hoare disagrees that the operation was an act of ethnic cleansing, and points out that the Krajina Serb leadership evacuated the civilian population as a response to the Croatian offensive; whatever their intentions, the Croatians never had the chance to organise their removal. The ICTY indicted Croatian generals Ante Gotovina, Ivan Čermak and Mladen Markač for war crimes for their roles in the operation, charging them with participating in a joint criminal enterprise (JCE) aimed at the permanent removal of Serbs of Croatia, Serbs from the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) held part of Croatia. Gotovina and Markač were convicted and Čermak was acquitted in April 2011. In November 2012, the ICTY Appeals Chamber acquitted Gotovina and Markač, reversing its earlier judgement by a 3–2 decision. The Appeals Chamber ruled that there was insufficient evidence to conclude the existence of a joint criminal enterprise to remove Serb civilians by force and further stated that while the Croatian Army and Special Police committed crimes after the artillery assault, the state and military leadership could not be held responsible for their planning and creation.
* At least 700,000 Kosovo Albanians were deported from Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
between 1998 and 1999 during the Kosovo War. The ICTY convicted several officials for persecution, forced displacement and/or deportation, including Nikola Šainović, Dragoljub Ojdanić and Nebojša Pavković.
* In the aftermath of Kosovo War between 200,000 and 250,000 Serbs
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language.
The majority of Serbs live in their na ...
and other non-Albanians fled Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
.
* The forced displacement and Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia, ethnic-cleansing of more than 250,000 people, mostly Georgians but some others too, from Abkhazia during the conflict and after in 1993 and 1998.
* The mass expulsion of southern Lhotshampas (Bhutanese of Nepalese origin) by the northern Druk majority in Bhutan in 1990. The number of refugees is approximately 103,000.
* In October 1990, the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), forcibly Expulsion of Muslims from the Northern province by LTTE, expelled the entire Islam in Sri Lanka, Muslim population (approx 65,000) from the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. The Muslims were given 48 hours to vacate the premises of their homes while their properties were subsequently looted by LTTE. Those who refused to leave were killed.
* In Jammu and Kashmir (state), Jammu and Kashmir, a separatist insurgency has targeted the Hindu Kashmiri Pandit minority and 400,000 have been displaced, and 1,200 have been killed since 1991. Islamic terrorists infiltrated the region in 1989 and began an ethnic cleansing campaign to convert Kashmir to a Muslim state. Since that time, over 400,000 Kashmiri Hindus have either been murdered or forced from their homes. This has been condemned and labeled as ethnic cleansing in a 2006 resolution passed by the United States Congress. Also in 2009 the Oregon Legislative Assembly introduced a resolution to recognize 14 September 2007, as Martyrs Day to acknowledge the ethnic cleansing and the campaigns of terror inflicted on the non-Muslim minorities of Jammu and Kashmir (state), Jammu and Kashmir by militants seeking to establish an independent Kashmir, and also to recognize the region as Indian territory rather than as a disputed territory – the resolution failed to pass.
* The May 1998 riots of Indonesia targeted many Chinese Indonesians. Suffering from looting and arson many Chinese Indonesians fled from Indonesia.
* There have been serious outbreaks of inter-ethnic violence on the island of Kalimantan since 1997, involving the indigenous Dayak peoples and immigrants from the island of Madura. In 2001 in the Central Kalimantan town of Sampit, at least 500 Madurese people, Madurese were killed and up to 100,000 Madurese were forced to flee. Some Madurese bodies were decapitated in a ritual reminiscent of the headhunting tradition of the Dayaks of old.
21st century
2000s
* In 2003, Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti people, Mbuti Pygmies, told the UN's United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Indigenous People's Forum that during the Second Congo War, Congo Civil War, his people were hunted down and eaten as though they were game animals. Both sides of the war regarded them as "wikt:subhuman, subhuman" and some say their flesh can confer magical powers. Makelo asked the UN Security Council to recognize cannibalism as a crime against humanity and an act of genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
.
* From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, Indonesian paramilitaries organized and armed by Indonesian military and police killed or expelled large numbers of civilians in East Timor. After the East Timorese people voted for independence in a 1999 East Timorese independence referendum, 1999 referendum, Indonesian paramilitaries retaliated, murdering Separatists and levelling most towns. More than 200,000 people either fled or were forcibly taken to Indonesia before East Timor achieved full independence.
* Since the mid-1990s the central government of Botswana has been trying to move Bushmen also known as the Saan, out of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. As of October 2005, the government has resumed its policy of forcing all Bushmen off their lands in the Game Reserve, using armed police and threats of violence or death. Many of the involuntarily displaced Bushmen live in squalid resettlement camps and some have resorted to prostitution and alcoholism, while about 250 others remain or have surreptitiously returned to the Kalahari to resume their independent lifestyle. Festus Mogae defended the Actions, saying, "How can we continue to have Stone Age creatures in an age of computers?"
* Since 2003, Sudan has been widely accused of carrying out a War in Darfur, Genocide Campaign against several black ethnic groups in Darfur, in response to a rebellion by Africans alleging mistreatment. Sudanese irregular militia known as the Janjaweed and Sudanese military and police forces have killed an estimated 450,000, expelled around two million, and burned 800 villages. A 14 July 2007 article notes that in the past two months up to 75,000 Arabs from Chad and Niger crossed the border into Darfur. Most have been relocated by the Sudanese government to former villages of displaced non-Arab people. Some 450,000 have been killed and 2.5 million have now been forced to flee to refugee camps in Chad after their homes and villages were destroyed. Sudan refuses to allow their return, or to allow United Nations peacekeepers into Darfur.
*At least one additional thousand Serbs fled their homes during the 2004 unrest in Kosovo and numerous religious and cultural objects were burned down.
*During the Iraqi civil war (2006–2008), Iraq Civil War and consequent Iraqi insurgency (2011–2013), Iraqi insurgency (2011-2013), entire neighborhoods in Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
were ethnically cleansed by Shia and Sunni militias. Some areas were evacuated by every member of a particular group due to lack of security, moving into new areas because of fear of reprisal killings. As of 21 June 2007, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that 2.2 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighboring countries, and 2 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.
*Assyrian exodus from Iraq from 2003 until present is often described as ethnic cleansing. Although Iraqi Christians represent less than 5% of the total Iraqi population, they make up 40% of the refugees now living in nearby countries, according to UNHCR. In the 16th century, Christians constituted half of Iraq's population. In 1987, the last Iraqi census counted 1.4 million Christians. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, 2003 invasion and the resultant growth of militant Islamism, Christians' total numbers slumped to about 500,000, of whom 250,000 live in Baghdad. Furthermore, the Mandaeans, Mandaean and Yazidi communities are at the risk of elimination due to the ongoing atrocities by Islamism, Islamic extremists. A 25 May 2007 article notes that in the past 7 months only 69 people from Iraq have been granted Immigration to the United States#Asylum for refugees, refugee status in the United States.
*In October 2006, Niger announced that it would deport Arabs living in the Diffa region of eastern Niger to Chad. This population numbered about 150,000. Nigerien government forces forcibly rounded up Arabs in preparation for deportation, during which two girls died, reportedly after fleeing government forces, and three women suffered miscarriages. Niger's government eventually suspended the plan.
*In 1950, the Karen people, Karen had become the largest of 20 minority groups participating in an insurgency against the military dictatorship in Burma. The conflict continues as of 2008. In 2004, the BBC, citing aid agencies, estimates that up to 200,000 Karen have been driven from their homes during decades of war, with 120,000 more refugees from Burma, mostly Karen, living in refugee camps on the Thai side of the border. Many accuse the military government of Burma of ethnic cleansing. As a result of the Internal conflict in Burma, ongoing war in minority group areas more than two million people have fled Burma to Thailand.
*2007–2008 Kenyan crisis, Civil unrest in Kenya erupted in December 2007. By 28 January 2008, the death toll from the violence was at around 800. The United Nations estimated that as many as 600,000 people have been displaced. A government spokesman claimed that Raila Odinga, Odinga's supporters were "engaging in ethnic cleansing".
*The 2008 attacks on North Indians in Maharashtra began on 3 February 2008. Incidences of violence against North Indians and their property were reported in Mumbai, Pune, Aurangabad district, Maharashtra, Aurangabad, Beed, Nashik, Amravati, Jalna district, Jalna and Latur. Nearly 25,000 North Indian workers fled Pune, and another 15,000 fled Nashik in the wake of the attacks.
*2008 South Africa riots, South Africa Ethnic Cleansing erupted on 11 May 2008 within three week
80 000 were displaced
the death toll wa
with 670 injured in the violence when South Africans ejected non-nationals in a nationwide ethnic cleansing/xenophobic outburst. The most affected foreigners have been Somali people, Somalis, People of Ethiopia, Ethiopians, Non-resident Indian and person of Indian origin, Indians, Pakistani people, Pakistanis, Zimbabweans and Mozambiqueans. Local South Africans have also been caught up in the violence. Arvin Gupta, a senior UNHCR protection officer, said the UNHCR did not agree with the City of Cape Town that those displaced by the violence should be held at camps across the city. During the 2010 FIFA world cup, rumors were reported that xenophobic attacks will be commenced after the final. A few incidents occurred where foreign individuals were targeted, but the South African police claims that these attacks can not be classified as xenophobic attacks but rather as regular criminal activity in the townships. Elements of the South African Army were sent into the affected townships to assist the police in keeping order and preventing continued attacks.
*In August 2008, the 2008 South Ossetia war broke out when Georgia (country), Georgia launched a military offensive against South Ossetian separatists, leading to military intervention by Russia, during which Georgian forces were expelled from the separatist territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. During the fighting, 15,000 ethnic Georgians living in South Ossetia were forced to flee to Georgia proper, and Ossetian militias burned their villages to the Ground in order to prevent their return.
2010s
*Strategic demographic and cultural cleansing by the Sinhalese people, Sinhala Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Buddhist majority of the Sri Lankan Moors, Muslim and Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil minorities in Sri Lanka.
*The killing of hundreds of ethnic Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan during the 2010 South Kyrgyzstan ethnic clashes resulting in the flight of thousands of Uzbek refugees to Uzbekistan have been called ethnic cleansing by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and international media.
*The black Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...
n tribe of Tawergha town de-populated by Anti-Gaddafi forces following the Battle of Tawergha in 2011.
*Since the start of the Syrian civil war, Syrian Civil War, Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shia Islam, Shi'ite political movement, which is allied with pro-government forces, has been accused of ethnic cleansing against the Sunni majority.
*Members of the Azusa 13 gang, associated with the Mexican Mafia, were accused of attempting a racial cleansing of African Americans in Azusa, California.
*2012 Rakhine State riots. An estimated 90,000 people have been displaced in the recent 2012 Rakhine State riots, sectarian violence between Rohingya people, Rohingya Muslims and Buddhism in Myanmar, Buddhists in Myanmar, Burma's western Rakhine State.[Ethnic Cleansing in Myanmar]
. ''The New York Times''. 12 July 2012.
*Approximately 400,000 people have been displaced in the 2012 Assam violence, 2012 Assam ethnic violence between indigenous Bodo people, Bodos and Bengali language, Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam, India.
*Sources inside the Syriac Orthodox Church have reported that an ongoing Sectarianism and minorities in the Syrian civil war, ethnic cleansing of Syrian Christians is being carried out by anti-government rebels.
*Central African Republic Civil War. More than 1 million have been internally displaced.
*As part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims, more than 50 people were killed in the 2013 Myanmar anti-Muslim riots.
*South Sudanese Civil War. More than 700,000 have been internally displaced. Part of Ethnic violence in South Sudan (2011–present), Ethnic violence in South Sudan.
*In 2015, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, Ahmet Davutoglu publicly accused Russia and Syria of ethnic cleansing against the Syrian Turkmen minority. Only a few thousand Turkmen now live in Syria, in contrast to the 200,000-300,000 Turks who lived there before the Syrian Civil War. Thousands of Turkmen villagers have fled the country to escape Russian bombing. The minority also faced persecution prior to the war; and denied to speak their dialect.
*In 2017 a new wave of government sanctioned ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims amounting to genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
with thousands killed and many villages burned to the ground with their inhabitants executed has been reported in Myanmar, to the extent that children have reported to be beheaded or burned alive by the Myanmar military and Buddhism, Buddhist vigilantes.
*The ongoing Turkish occupation of northern Syria has seen ethnic cleansing of Kurds, Christianity in Syria, Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities, especially in the Afrin District, where 150,000–300,000 Kurds were displaced. The Turkish state has been resettling Afrin with Arab Syrian refugees.
*The Uyghur genocide has involved a campaign of ethnic cleansing orchestrated by the Government of China, Chinese government against the Uyghurs, Uyghur people and other ethnic and religious minorities in and around the Xinjiang, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of the China, People's Republic of China. Since 2014, the Government of China, Chinese government, under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Xi Jinping Administration, administration of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, CCP general secretary Xi Jinping, has pursued policies leading to more than one million Muslims (the majority of them Uyghurs) being held in secretive Xinjiang internment camps, internment camps without any legal process in what has become the largest-scale and most systematic detention of ethnic and religious minorities since the Holocaust.
2020s
* The Tigray War, War in Tigray has been described as an ongoing ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Ethiopia against Tigrayans, ethnic Tigrayans. New Identity document, IDs have been prescribed to Tigrayans, and many Tigrayans living in other Ethiopian regions have been subject to "ethnically selective purges." Ethiopia has also weaponized famine as a Military tactics, key war tactic in Tigray, leaving an estimated 90% of the population vulnerable to famine. All electricity has been cut off by Ethiopia, cutting off Tigray's communication with the outside world. One schoolteacher recalled, "Even if someone was dead, they shot them again, dozens of times. I saw this. I saw many bodies, even priests. They killed all Tigrayans."
* During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, reports indicated that between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainians on the Russian-occupied territories were deported to Russia, including 260,000 children. At least 18 Russian filtration camps of Ukrainians, filtration camps were established along the Russian border to facilitate this transfer. These crimes were alleged to be a form of depopulation and ethnic cleansing of Ukraine by the Russian military on the order of Russia's leader Vladimir Putin.
See also
* Expulsions and exoduses of Jews
* Genocides in history
* List of expulsions of African Americans
* List of genocides
* Population transfer in the Soviet Union
References
Further reading
* Bibliography of Genocide studies
{{Ethnicity
Ethnic cleansing, *
Forced migration
Human rights abuses
Persecution
Discrimination
Genocide