The skulls of victims of the Rwandan Genocide on display at the Nyamata Genocide Memorial Centre.

Genocide refers to a deliberate attempt to exterminate a certain racial, religious, national or ethnic group of people, usually through systematic violence and abuse that can amount to mass murder and state terrorism: many countries have been practicing genocide for thousands of years and it has only recently been seen as a major issue to be resolved, due in part to the infamous Holocaust of World War II - which opened many people's eyes to the extent genocide can go if left unopposed. A specific type of genocide is that which is targeted at indigenous peoples of any territory or region, which is often perpetrated by imperialist or colonial powers.

Genocide is the most common (and most violent) form of ethnic cleansing. However, both genocide and ethnic cleansing are often kept separate in legal contexts; while ethnic cleansing and genocide may share the same goal and the acts used to perpetrate both crimes may often resemble each other, ethnic cleansing is intended to displace a population from a given territory, while genocide is intended to destroy a population.

Under international law genocide is a crime against humanity, sadly it still remains rife in certain areas of the world and is hard to control due to it often being born of deep and prevalent hatred or fear of certain minorities.

Notable examples edit