Genocide refers to a deliberate attempt to exterminate a certain 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.
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 persecuted 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
- Circassian Genocide
- Rwandan Genocide
- Cambodian Genocide
- The Holocaust
- Armenian Genocide
- Greek Genocide
- Assyrian Genocide
- Darfur Genocide
- Bosnian Genocide
- Selk'nam Genocide
- Guatemalan Genocide
- East Timor Genocide
- Yazidi Genocide
- Rohingya Genocide
- The Holodomor
- 1971 Bangladesh Genocide
- The Porajmos (Romani genocide)
- The 1804 Haiti massacre
- The Wounded Knee Massacre
- The Gukurahundi
- Al-Anfal campaign
- Decossackization
- The Pacification of Libya
- The Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66
- Black War
- The Sook Ching
- Effacer le Tableau (Bambuti genocide)