Over 100 Genocides in 800 Years

Since the end of World War II there have been more than 50 unique genocides, and there are 20 currently happening. There have been hundreds in human history, but the following is a list of over 100 acts of genocide in the last 800 years.

There is not always an exact death toll, and often there is a large range. The crime of genocide is not determined by the number of deaths, but by the intent. The death tolls in this list are the most reasonable estimates based on available data and evidence.

Only three on the list have been internationally recognized as a genocide by all member states of the United Nations. Those three genocides are Bosnia, Cambodia, and Rwanda. All of these atrocities have been called genocides by at least one reputable organization and/or country.

Some regimes such as communist China, the Nazis, the Soviets, and Imperial Japan, perpetrated genocides against many groups of people and across many countries. Because they were committed by one group they are grouped together for the purposes of this list.

Genocidal campaigns which lasted for decades or centuries are grouped together as one genocide, but there were many individual actions, and many ethnic groups targeted during those periods. For example, the colonization and genocide of indigenous peoples of the Americas is grouped together because it would be impossible to decipher and label the deaths in each individual country of the Americas.

Photo by Manny Becerra, via Unsplash

The United Nations defined genocide in 1948 and that definition includes forced displacement/relocation, mass murder, sterilization, stealing of children, and any conditions of life intended to bring about suffering or death.

This is not a complete list, but without further ado here is a list of genocides of roughly the last 800 years:

• Conquests of Genghis Khan, 1206-1368, Asia and Eurasia; 40 to 75 million killed.
• Albigensian Crusade, 1209-1229, Languedoc (modern France); 200,000-1 million killed.
• The Spanish Inquisition, 1478-1834, Spain; 30,000+ people killed.
• Indigenous peoples of the Americas, 1492-1600, North, Central and South America; roughly 56 million killed in the first 108 years of colonization, but the genocide did not end there, this is just what researchers have been able to determine in the first 108 years.
  • Including the Taíno genocide, 1492-1514, Hispaniola (modern Haiti and Dominican Republic), 68,000-968,000 killed.
• Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1501-1867; ~13 million Africans arrived in the Americas as enslaved people, with between 1.2 and 2.4 million more who died during the voyage.
  • The slave trade existed in antiquity and in the Muslim world as well, not just the Americas. Between the 8th century-20th century, 6 to 10 million Africans were enslaved.
• Dzungar genocide, 1755-1758, Dzungaria, Qing dynasty, China; 480,000-600,000 killed, at least 80% of the Oirat Mongols were killed.
• Haitian Massacre, 1804, Haiti. 3,000-5,000 killed.
• Black War/genocide of the Aboriginal Tasmanians, 1825-1832, Tasmania; 400-1,000 killed. Lemkin considered this an archetypal case, as up to 100% of the aborigines were extinguished.
• Trail of Tears, 1830-1850, southeastern United States; 12,000-16,000 indigenous peoples were killed and approximately 60,000 were displaced. 
• Massacre of Salsipuedes, April 11, 1831, Uruguay; 40 killed.
• Moriori genocide, 1835-1863, Chatham Islands, New Zealand; 1,900 killed, 95% of the indigenous Moriori people were exterminated, the rest were enslaved and sometimes cannibalized.
• Pacification of Algeria, 1835-1903, French Algeria, 500,000-1,000,000 killed.
• Queensland Aboriginal genocide, 1840-1897, Australia; 10,000-65,180 killed.

A Land Back flag flies under the US Flag outside Aitkin County Courthouse in Aitkin, Minnesota, by Laurie Shaull, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

• California genocide, 1846-1873, United States; 9,500-120,000 killed.
• The Taiping Rebellion, or Civil War, 1850-1864, China; estimates range from 20 – 30 million people killed (civilians and military) but there was a focus on the Manchu ethnic minority, and in every area that was conquered, the Manchus were exterminated. In Nanjing alone around 40,000 Manchus were killed, and in Cangzhou about 10,000 were killed. 
• Circassian genocide, 1864-1867, Circassia, Russian Empire; 1 to 2 million killed.
• Putumayo genocide, 1879-1913, Colombia; 32,000-40,000 killed.
• Selk’nam genocide, 1880-1910, Tierra del Fuego, Chile, Argentina; 2,500-4,000 killed.
• Genocide in the Congo Free State under the rule of King Leopold II of Belgium, 1885-1908, Congo; 2 to 20 million killed.
• Hazara uprisings or Hazara massacres, 1888-1893, Afghanistan; roughly 60% (an exact number is unknown, but it is millions) of the Hazara population was killed or forcibly displaced.
• Indian genocide, 1891-1920, British occupied India; 100 to 165 million killed.
• Hamidian massacres or Armenian massacres, 1894-1896, Ottoman Empire; 100,000-300,000 killed.
• Indigenous Brazilians, 1900-1957, Brazil; about 800,000 killed, or about 80% of the indigenous population, with the destruction of over 80 tribes.
  • The genocide of indigenous peoples of Brazil began with the Portuguese colonization in 1500, and continues today with small-scale acts of violence, ecocide, and displacement.
• Stolen Generation, 1900-1969, Australia; 20,000-25,000 Aboriginal children were forcibly separated from their families with the intention of killing off the indigenous population.
• Herero and Nama genocide, 1904-1908, German South West Africa (modern Namibia); 34,000-110,000 killed.
• Maji Maji Rebellion, 1905-1907, German East Africa (modern Tanzania); 75,000-300,000 killed by violence, disease, and famine.
• Adana Massacre, April 1909 , Ottoman Empire, 20,000-25,000.
• Massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars, 1912-1913, Ottoman Empire (modern Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia); 120,000-270,000.
• Greek genocide, 1913-1923, Ottoman Empire (modern Turkey); 300,000-900,000 killed.
• Armenian genocide, 1915-1917, Ottoman Empire (modern Turkey, Syria and Iraq); 600,000-1,500,000 killed.
• Assyrian genocide or Sayfo, 1915-1919, Ottoman Empire (modern Turkey, Syria and Iraq); 200,000-750,000 (The Ottoman Empire had a few busy years while everybody was preoccupied with WWI).
• September Days, an Armenian massacre, 1918, Ottoman Empire (modern Azerbaijan), 10,000 – 30,000 killed.
• Shusha Massacre, another Armenian massacre, 1920, Azerbaijan and Armenia, 500-20,000 killed.
• Osage Indian murders, 1918-1931, Oklahoma, United States; 60-200 killed.
• Libyan genocide, 1929-1932, Italian-occupied Libya; 83,000-125,000 killed.

Victims of Stalin’s gulags on the Wall of Sorrow, by Dmitry Borko, 1988, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

• Genocides and ethnic cleansings, USSR and occupied countries, 1924-1953.
  • Between 1924 to 1953 at least 14 million people were sent to a gulag, a forced labor camp, which had high mortality rates.
  • The Polish Operation of the NKVD, 1937-1938, Soviet Union; 111,091-250,000 killed.
  • The Katyn massacre, March 5, 1940, Poland; 22,000 members of the Polish officer corps and intellectuals were killed.
  • Dekulakization, 1930-1952, USSR countries; up to 15 million Soviet, Eastern European, and Central Asian kulaks (“wealthy peasants”) and ethnic minorities were deported to forced relocation settlements in Siberia. Many millions died during deportation and at the camps.
  • The Soviet famine of 1930-1933, USSR countries; a man-made famine that starved 5.7 to 7 million people to death, primarily in the Ukraine where 3 to 5 million died. The famine in Ukraine is called the Holodomor.
  • The Soviet famine of 1946 to 1947, USSR countries; 1 to 1.5 million people starved to death.
  • Ethnic Cleansing of minorities, non-USSR countries that the Soviets occupied; at least 5.8 million were forcibly relocated to settlements in USSR countries.
  • Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush, 1944-1948, Soviet Union; 100,000-400,000 killed.
  • Deportation of the Crimean Tatars, 1944, Crimea, Soviet Union; 34,000-195,471 killed.
  • And a plethora of war crimes committed between 1917 and 1991 in USSR countries (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Moldavia, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, and Estonia) and countries they occupied or invaded (Afghanistan, China, Mongolia, Japan, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, and Albania).
• Nazi Genocide, 1935-1945, Nazi Germany and occupied territories.
  • 5.1 – 6 .3 million Jewish people killed
  • 10.3 – 21.77 million Slavic people killed
    • 4.5 – 10 million Soviet civilians died from direct war violence such as executions, bombing raids, etc
    • 4 – 9 million Soviet civilians died from war-related famine or disease
    • 1.8 – 2.77 million Ethnic Poles
  • 200,000 – 300,000 disabled civilians killed (the best estimate is between around 275,000).
  • 250,000 – 500,000 Romani and Sinti people killed.
  • 300,000 – 400,000 people legally sterilized, thousands more forcibly sterilized, and many thousands died from unclean surgical practices.

Train to Auschwitz, photo via Pexels

• Japanese war crimes and genocide in Asia, 1935-1945, Asia; 3 to 30 million civilians killed, including Chinese, Tamil Indians, Koreans, Malayans, Indonesians, Filipinos, Indochinese.
  • Including Unit 731 and Unit 1855 (which operated under 731) performed human experimentation, biological, bacteriological, and chemical warfare in Manchukuo, 1935-1945. Over 3,000 died from experimentation and at least 10,000 other prisoners died, and the civilians who died as a result of the biological warfare the Japanese discovered in experimentation is about 400,000 or higher.
  • The Sook Ching massacre, Feb-Mar 1942, Singapore; 40,000-100,000 killed.
  • The Nanjing Massacre, or the Rape of Nanjing, Dec 1937-Jan 1938; 200,000-300,000 killed, 30,000-40,000 POWs executed, and 20,000-80,000 women and children raped.
• Parsley massacre, 1937, Dominican Republic; 12,000-40,000 killed.
• Genocide of Serbs, Jews, and Romani, 1941-1945, Independent State of Croatia (modern Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina); 248,000-548,000 killed.
• American war crimes in Japan, 1942-1945, Japan; 430,000+ civilians killed.
  • Including 60,000-80,000 civilians killed in Nagasaki, and 70,000-126,000 civilians killed in Hiroshima.
  • And a minimum of 300,000 civilians killed during the napalm bombing raids.
• Japanese, German, and Italian Internment Camps in the US, 1942-1948, United States; 120,000+ Japanese-Americans forcibly displaced to internment camps, 11,000+ German-Americans, and 1,881 Italian-Americans. Plus at least 6,856 Japanese or German citizens of Latin America who were brought to America for imprisonment.
• Genocide of Bosniaks and Croats, 1941-1945, Yugoslavia; 50,000-68,000 killed.
• Setif and Guelma massacre, May-June 1945, French-occupied Algeria; 6,000-45,000 killed.
• Partition of India, 1947, British India and modern-day Pakistan; 200,000-2,000,000 killed.
• The Nakba, 1948, Palestine; 750,000 Palestinians were forced to relocate, ethnically cleansing them from certain areas for the Zionist occupation to take over. At least 15,000 were killed and over 200 villages were destroyed. Massacres have continued until the present day.
• China, 1949-1976
  • 1949-1953 the Chinese Land Reform, 200,000-5,000,000 civilians and landlords killed, and between 700,000 and 2 million “counter-revolutionaries” killed, and between 1 and 6 million people were sent to a labor camp.
  • 1955-1959, the purges; between 550,000 and 2 million people “purged” and at least 53,000 deaths.
  • 1959-1961, the Great Leap Forward; 15 to 55 million people died of a man-made famine.
  • 1963-1965, the Socialist Education Movement; more than 5 million people were persecuted and more than 77,000 killed.
• Tibet, 1952-present, Chinese-occupied Tibet; 400,000-1,200,000 killed.
• Indigenous Paraguans, 1956-1989, Paraguay; 900+ killed.
• Sri Lankan Tamil Genocide, 1956-present, Sri Lanka; 154,022-253,818 killed.
  • Including the Mullivaikkal massacre, 2009; 40,000-70,000 killed.
• North Korean Prison Camps, (at least) 1959-present, North Korea. Unknown thousands, perhaps millions, have passed through the vast network of prison and “reeducation” camps, conditions are so deplorable that an estimated 40% of prisoners die of malnutrition/starvation, and unknown thousands die at the hands of the guards. As of 2019, an estimated 80,000-200,000 prisoners were imprisoned in the camp network.
• Guatamalan genocide, 1960-1996, Guatamala; 166,000-200,000 killed.
• Papua conflict, 1962-present, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia; 100,000-500,000 killed.
• Zanzibar genocide, 1964, Zanzibar (now Tanzania); 13,000-20,000 killed.
• Colombia conflict, 1964-present, Colombia; 220,000-800,000 killed and at least 7 million displaced.
• Indonesian mass killings, 1965-1966, Indonesia; 500,000-3,000,000 killed.
• Biafra, 1966-1970, Nigeria; 500,000-400,000 killed, primarily from a man-made famine.

Protesting the Vietnam War by Frank Wolfe, October 21, 1967 (NARA), CC PDM 1.0

• Mai Lai Massacre, March 16, 1968, Vietnam; 504 killed by US troops during the Vietnam War. This was not the only massacre of Vietnamese civilians by US troops, but many have been covered up or evidence is inconclusive.
• Equatorial Guinea, 1969-1979, Equatorial Guinea; 35,000-80,000 killed.
• Bangladesh Genocide or Biharis genocide, 1971, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh); 300,000-3,000,000 killed.
• Genocide of Acholi and Lango people, 1972-1978, Uganda; 100,000-300,000 killed.
• Ikiza, 1972, Burundi; 80,000-300,000 killed, primarily Hutus (perpetrated by Tutsis).
• East Timor, 1974-1999, Indonesia; 85,320-196,720 killed.
• Dirty War, 1974-1983, Argentina; 22,000-30,000 killed or disappeared.
• Hmong genocide, 1975-present, but a lesser extent since 2007, Loas; 100,000-300,000 killed.
• Cambodian genocide/Khmer Rogue, 1975-1979, Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia); 1,386,734-2,000,000 killed.
• The Siege of Tel al-Zaatar, 1975, Lebanon; 1,500-3,000 Palestinian refugees killed by the Lebanese Front.
• Ethiopian Red Terror, 1976-1978, and the 1983-1985 famine, Ethiopia, under the Mengistu regime; 500,000-2,000,000 killed, primarily during the famine.
• Soviet-Afghan War, 1979-1989, Afghanistan; 1.5 to 2 million civilians killed, 5.5 to 6.2 million more were made refugees, and roughly 12,000 villages were destroyed by the Soviets.
• Ba’athist Regime of Saddam Hussein, 1979-2003, Iraq; an estimated 290,000 people were killed or “disappeared.”
  • Several acts of genocide against minority and ethnic groups were committed including the Anfal campaign, 1986-1989, Kurdistan Region, Iraq; 50,000-182,000 killed. 
• Sabra and Shatila massacre, 1982, Beirut, Lebanon; 460-3,500 killed by the Lebanese Forces supported by the Israeli Defense Forces.
• Gukurahundi, 1983-1987, Matabeleland, Zimbabwe; 8,000-300,000 killed.
• Second Sudanese civil war, 1983-2005, South Sudan; 1 to 2 million killed and 4 million displaced.
• Isaaq genocide, 1987-1989, Somaliland, Somalia; 50,000-200,000 killed.
• National Population Program, 1987-2002, Peru; 300,000+ women were forcibly sterilized, with the intent of exterminating the indigenous population.
• Amhara genocide, sometimes called the Tigray genocide, 1990-present, Ethiopia; 2 to 6 million people cannot be located and have likely been killed, over 2 million are displaced.
• Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia, 1992 – 1998, Georgia;  5,000 – 6,000 killed and 200,000 – 267,000 displaced.
• Bosnian genocide, 1992-1995, Bosnia and Herzegovina; 31,107-62,013 (WAS IT?) killed.
• Burundi ethnic cleansing, 1993, Burundi; 116,059 Tutsis killed (perpetrated by Hutus). This started the Burundi civil war which lasted from 1993 to 2005, in which a total of 300,000 people were killed.
• Rwandan genocide, 1994, Rwanda; 491,000-1,000,000 killed, primarily Tutsis (perpetrated by Hutus).
• Massacres of Hutus during the First Congo War, 1996-1997, Kivu, Zaire; 200,000-233,000 killed.

Hazaras in Behsud, photo by насим, CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr

• Dozens of Massacres of Hazaras committed by the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and ISIL, 1996-present, Afghanistan; an indeterminate amount of deaths, but well into the tens of thousands.
  • Including the Mazar-i-Sharif Anti-Hazara massacre, 1998, in which 2,000-20,000 killed. Hazara women have also been taken as sex slaves by terrorist organizations.
• Effacer le tableau, 2002-2003, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo; 60,000-70,000 killed.
• Mining in the DRC, early 2000s-present, Democratic Republic of Congo; an unknown amount of deaths.
• Darfur genocide, 2003-present, Darfur, Sudan; 98,000-500,000 killed and currently over 8 million people require humanitarian aid.
• Mali, 2012-present, Mali; 10,800+ killed and more than 5 million displaced.
• Central African Republic conflict, 2013-2014, Central African Republic; at least 660 killed.
• Syrian civil war, 2013-present, Syria; 116,000+ killed and over 11 million displaced.
• Iraqi Turkmen genocide, 2014-2017, ISIS controlled territory northern Iraq; 3,500-8,400 killed.
• Yemen, 2014-present, Yemen; 233,000+ killed.
• Yazidi genocide, 2014-2017, ISIS controlled territory in northern Iraq and Syria; 2,100-5,000 killed.
• Uyghur genocide or Xinjiang genocide, 2014-present, Xinjiang, China; 2 million ethnic minorities (primarily Uyghur) detained in about 1,300 “re-education camps” and  with an unknown death toll.
• Burkina Faso, 2016-present, Burkina Faso; 1,850+ killed and at least 1 million displaced.
• Cameroon, 2016-present, Cameroon; 6,000+ killed and 600,000+ displaced.
• Rohingya genocide, 2016-present, Rakhine State, Myanmar (former Burma); 9,000-43,000 killed and more than 1 million displaced.
• Russian invasion of Ukraine, 2022-present, Ukraine; 10,000+ killed, over 12 million displaced, at least 19,546 children abducted and deported to Russia, and between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainians forcibly deported to Russia in 2022 alone.
• Palestinian genocide, 2023-present, Gaza, and to a lesser extent, the West Bank; 41,000+ people killed with at least 20,000 missing as of October, 2024.

Photo by Zeliha Çeken, via Pexels