Genocide is the crime in which one group tries to annihilate another. This hatred is directed against nations, religious or ethnic groups. Sad. And the worst: they keep rolling. In the 21st century, Darfur, Nigeria and South Sudan, among others, have suffered from it. See the world’s worst massacres of the past 150 years.
10. Hereros and Namaquas
WHEN – 1904-1907
VICTIMS – 65,000 Hereros and 10,000 Namaquas
AUTHOR OF THE CRIME – Germany
It was the first genocide of the 20th century in what is now Namibia. The few who were not expelled into the Kalahari Desert ended up in concentration camps, identified by numbers and forced to work themselves to death. Half of the Namaqua and 80% of the Hereros were killed (Jews lost about 35% of their people during the Nazi massacre). A century later, the Germans apologized but offered no compensation.
CRUELTY – The Germans still poisoned the wells across the desert. Years later, bones were found in holes – people dug with their bare hands in search of water.
9. Terror in East Timor
WHEN – 1975-1999
VICTIMS – 150,000 Timorese
AUTHOR OF THE CRIME – Indonesia
When this former Portuguese colony in Southeast Asia was occupied by Indonesia, it experienced hell: crops were burned with napalm and its water supplies were poisoned. And about 20,000 people “disappeared”. Even in peaceful protests the repression was brutal. In 1991, 400 students were shot in a cemetery because of a demonstration in front of journalists from all over the world.
CRUELTY – In 1999, before leaving Timor, Indonesian militias killed 61 people who were hiding in a church. The atrocity became known as the Liquiçá Massacre.
8. Cruelty in Bosnia
WHEN – 1992-1995
VICTIMS – 200,000 Bosnians dead, 2 million refugees
PERSON OF THE CRIME – Militias and Serbian army
When the former Yugoslavia broke up into several states, the Serbs tried to grab as much territory as possible. Those who suffered the most were the Bosnians. Discriminated for being Muslim, thousands were executed and buried in mass graves as Europe and the US looked on. In Srebrenica, Serbian militias, on the nose of UN troops, killed 8,000 men between the ages of 12 and 60.
CRUELTY – About 40,000 Bosnian women were systematically raped. And when they became pregnant, they were forced to give birth.
7. Circassian revolt
WHEN – Last decades of the 19th century
VICTIMS – 400,000 Circassians killed, 1.2 million exiled
Russian Empire
Around 1860, the Russians were finishing to dominate the Caucasus and the region of Chechnya. But in their way were the Circassians, Muslim peoples. That’s when General Yevdokimov had the brilliant idea of “inviting” (read obliging) the natives to move to the neighboring Ottoman Empire. To ensure that the highlanders really left, the soldiers destroyed village by village.
CRUELTY – Ethnic cleansing was so complete that today no one in the Caucasus region speaks the languages of the Circassian peoples.
6. Porajmos, the hunt for the gypsies
WHEN – 1939-1945
VICTIMS – 500,000 Roma (gypsies)
AUTHOR OF THE CRIME – Nazis
When the Nazis arrived at the Gypsy camps, they killed without mercy. Often, they didn’t even make the selection on arrival at the concentration camps – they ended up with everyone. To this day, the 500,000 gypsies killed (in proportion, a group as large as that of Jews murdered in World War II) are little remembered.
CRUELTY – One of the most macabre cases of the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele is that of the gypsy twins Guido and Ina, sewn together, from the back, like Siamese. The mother killed them both with morphine to end their suffering.
5. Massacre in Rwanda
WHEN – April 1994
VICTIMS – 700,000 Tutsi dead and 200,000 refugees; hundreds of dead hutus
AUTHOR OF THE CRIME – Hutu militias
For a hundred days, Hutu militias waged a bloodbath in this small African country in an attempt to exterminate Tutsis, another ethnic group. In addition to barbarism, what most shocked the world was the passive position of the UN and the great powers, which watched the carnage without intervening. In the end, Tutsi guerrillas took over the country. Then, it was the turn of 2 million Hutus, afraid of revenge, to leave the region.
CRUELTY – The main weapon used to kill Tutsis was machetes. Thousands of them had been imported from China months earlier in a calculated act of preparation.
4. Mass Death in Armenia
WHEN – 1915-1917
VICTIMS – 1.5 million Armenians killed, 500,000 deported
PERSON OF THE CRIME – Ottoman Turks
In the First War, accused of treason and collusion with the Russians, 2 million Armenians were forced to leave their homes and march to a desert region near Syria, where they were left to die. It is considered the first modern genocide on a large scale, carried out in an organized way (it served as an inspiration for Hitler, who always cited him as an example). To this day, Turkey denies the massacre.
CRUELTY – Who “escorted” the Armenians to the desert were paramilitary groups formed by ex-convicts, who raped, robbed and killed the exiles during the journey.
3. Blood in Cambodia
WHEN – 1975-1979
VICTIMS – 1.7 million people
AUTHOR OF THE CRIME – Khmer Rouge
Pol Pot, leader of the communists who seized power in Cambodia, resolved to «cleanse» the country not of a specific ethnicity (although Chinese and Vietnamese minorities were decimated afterwards), but of all who thought in an anti-communist way. Intellectuals, monks and anyone with a profession were considered «bad apples». Those who were not shot at the time went to re-education camps, where they were worked to death. It is the most famous self-genocide in history.
CRUELTY – Contempt for life marked the motto of the Khmer Rouge: “Keeping you alive does us no good. Destroying you will be no loss to us.”
2. Ukrainian Genocide
WHEN – 1932-1933
VICTIMS – 5 million Ukrainians
AUTHOR OF THE CRIME – Soviet Union
Determined to transform Ukraine and its wheat production into a stronghold of communism, Stalin decided to “cleanse” the region of what bothered him the most: the Ukrainians. They couldn’t speak their language, they were hounded by the secret service and left without food. Bandits charged abusive prices on the black market, children were abandoned and even cannibalism took place in what became known as Holomodo.
CRUELTY – Stalin launched the “law of five ears”. Anyone caught taking food for himself was accused of robbing the state. Penalty: ten years hard labor or even death.
1. Jewish Holocaust
WHEN – 1939-1945
VICTIMS – 6 million Jews
AUTHOR OF THE CRIME – Nazis
In addition to the quantity, what was most frightening was the almost industrial way in which the Jews were massacred. At the height of concentration camps, clothes, teeth, hair and even corpses were reused by the Nazis. Stronger men were worked to death, the «unproductive» went straight to the gas chambers, and others were simply executed (an estimated 1.4 million) in «cleansing» operations.
CRUELTY – The massacre also took place in other ways. About 800,000 Jews died of typhoid fever, malnutrition and other illnesses as they were confined in so-called ghettos.
READ TOO:
– What was the Rape of Nanjing?
– What was the Tiananmen protest?
– What was the War of Canudos?