Genocides Persist Without Bullets or Bombs

There are over twenty ongoing genocides in the year 2025. Several genocides that began as early as the 1940s have never truly ended, even as the world turned away. International law prohibits genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression, but international courts fail to hold individuals who commit or encourage genocide accountable.

Unless there is outrage and international action, countries can continue to perpetrate genocide without opposition. There is a pattern of global apathy that allows genocides to continue.

People assume that genocide must be violent in order to qualify, but a genocide includes more than just physical violence. Starvation, ethnic cleansing, removing children, physical and mental suffering, preventing births, and extreme cultural oppression are all methods of genocide.

Often, genocides that begin as mass expulsions and murders morph into cultural genocide, and without being stamped out, the genocide continues. In many cases, millions of people are still displaced because of the genocides, such as Palestinians, the Hmong people of Loas, the Amharas of Ethiopia, ethnic minorities of Sudan, the Rohingya of Myanmar, and many more.

Without violence, one may think that the genocide is over, but when is a genocide really over?

Is it over when the killing stops?
Is it when there is international intervention that puts an end to the violence?
Is it when the International Court of Justice prosecutes the case?
Is it when the war is officially over even if the people are still enslaved or detained?
Is an end to the violence enough, or must the perpetrators atone for their crimes and face trial in a criminal court?

For the individual, is the genocide over when people can return to their homes safely after being forcibly displaced?

One could argue that “the end” is different for individuals than it is for the state, but there is no single marker for when a genocide ends.

Genocide does not end when the world stops watching. In fact, global apathy is the most crucial factor in the continuation of genocide.