14 Tragic Lesser-Known Genocides

Armenia is a small country near modern-day Turkey.The Armenians.People lived in this region for thousands of years. The Ottoman Empire absorbed them during the 15th century. WWI worsened tensions between the Ottoman Empire and the Armenians, who had aided the Russians against the Turks.

In 1915, the Turkish government started executing Armenian intellectuals and kicking Armenian citizens from their homes. They were forced tomarchThey marched through the Mesopotamian desert lacking food or water until they died from thirst and hunger. Almost 1.5 million Armenians died by the time the killing stopped. Turkey still denies the scale of the massacre today.Turkey still denies the scale of the massacre.The Turkish government refuses to call it "genocide."

Everyone should know the United States committed genocide against Native American people. People forget, though, that Canada also committed genocide against its native population.

Between the 1800s and 1970s, Canada removed 150,000 Native children from their homes. They forced these children into Christian boarding schools. In 2015, the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission finished investigating Canada's Indian Residential Schools system andconcludedCanada committed "cultural genocide."Some, however, argue Canada committed straight-up genocide.

Canada did not aim to kill indigenous people openly. Yet, the death rate at these boarding schools was alarmingly high. The UN's Convention on Genocide counts "Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group" as genocide itself. What Canadians did to their indigenous population fits this definition.

The Moriori people lived on the Chatham Islands, 400 miles east of New Zealand. Their peakpopulationreached only about 2,000, but another group, the Māori (New Zealand's indigenous people), almost wiped them out.

Ethnically, the Moriori and the Māori are the same..Around 1500, a group of Māori moved from New Zealand to the Chatham Islands. They started calling themselves Moriori. They adopted a new way of life based on non-violence and pacifism.Around the year 1500,, Māori moved from New Zealand to the Chatham Islands and named themselves Moriori. They adopted a new lifestyle based on non-violence and pacifism.

In 1835, the Māori brought weapons, acquired from New Zealand's European colonists, to the Chatham Islands. Theyabout 300 Moriori were killed.immediately. Those who survived that first massacre were enslaved. By 1862, only about 100 Moriori remained. The last full-blooded Moriori died in 1933.

When British India split into India and Pakistan during the Partitionof 1947, the new nation of Pakistan also included present-day Bangladesh. The new government spent the next twenty years trying to crush the Bengalis, refusing to accept their language and way of practicing Islam.Pakistan's Partition in 1947 split British India into India and Pakistan. Pakistan's new nation also included present-day Bangladesh. The new government spent the next two decades trying to suppress the Bengalis, refusing to recognize their language and way of practicing Islam.

The Bengalis launched a nationalist movement in response. The Pakistani government launchedOperation SearchlightIn 1971, Pakistan designed this to erase all opposition to the government. Death tolls reach 500,000 to nearly 3 million. Bengalis formed their own nation early in the 1970s with strong global backing.

This might be the deadliest genocide in modern history, yet it rarely receives discussion. The horror began when King Leopold II of Belgium claimed the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1885. To make the colony profitable, he forced the Congolese toharvest rubber.Villages failing to meet rubber quotas faced slaughter when collectors arrived.

Some estimate between 2 and 15 million Congolese people died by 1908, when mass murders stopped. This gap in estimates is terrifying and shows how little the Belgians valued Congolese lives. Sadly, aninvestigationThe investigation into genocide allegations did not start until nearly 100 years later.

The Circassians are a small ethnic group.groupThis group lived east of Crimea for 4,000 years until the Russiansinvadedtheir land in the 1760s. Russian soldiers killed hundreds of thousands of Circassians in the conflict. After taking control, Russian soldiers slaughtered unarmed women and children.

Remaining Circassians moved to Turkey, but many died during the journey. The Turkish government failed to prepare for resettling and supplying resources to the over 1 million refugees needing help. By the end, 625,000 people perished.

Many credit Oliver Cromwell with founding English democracy, but the Irish view this "hero" differently.

Cromwell moved his troops toIrelandIreland (then a British colony) in 1649 tocrush the Irish Catholic rebellionagainst Parliament. Cromwell first went to Drogheda, killing 2,500 men when the town commander refused to surrender. Next, he killed2,000 soldiers and 1,500 civiliansin Wexford.

ChinainvadedTibet and took control in 1950. Occupiers brought communism to Tibet, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of deeply religious people. The Chinese forced the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual and political leader, into exile. They defiled many Tibetan Buddhist temples and crushed uprisings led by the Tibetan people. In 2015, the Dalai Lama accused China of committingcultural genocideagainst Tibet.

Witnesses claim Chinese authorities killed Tibetan demonstrators in large numbers.One sourcesays 1.2 million Tibetans have died since China first occupied the country.

The Kurds are an ethnic group living across parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.

The Kurds suffered greatly from every nation they inhabit, but casualties reached genocidal levels during theIran-Iraq WarIn the 1980s, Iranians backed Kurdish guerrilla forces fighting for Iraq's independence.

Iraqis launched the Al-Anfal campaign. They used chemical weapons, bombs, and military ground operations to wipe out the Kurds. They destroyed villages and executed civilians by the thousands. Human Rights Watch.The losses were estimated.Between 50,000 and 100,000 lives were lost.

Before the Holocaust, Germany committed the Herero and Nama Genocide in present-day Namibia during the early 1900s. Namibia was a German colony then.It was a German colony.German settlers took the land from the native Herero and Nama people, forcing them into slave labor. The Herero and Nama revolted. Germans responded by wiping out both groups.

Germans kept systematically killing the indigenous people even after the uprising stopped.General Lothar von Trotha was involved.The commander of German Forces wrote about the Herero, saying, “I believe that the nation as such should be annihilated, or, if this is not possible by tactical measures, expelled from the country.” About 100,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama were killed.Those 100,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama were killed..

Germany did not apologize to Namibia until 2016.Germany did not apologize.Germany did not apologize to Namibia until 2016.

Present-day Guatemala.Guatemala.Guatemala was once the center of the ancient Mayan empire. It kept a large Mayan population through Central America's modernization. In the 1970s, Maya people protested the harsh Guatemalan government. A civil war already raged, and the government thought the Maya supported the rebels' guerilla warfare.

In 1980, the Guatemalan government started Operation Sophia.Operation Sophia aimed to wipe out the entire Mayan population. The army killed 200,000 people and moved another 1.5 million. They destroyed villages, killed livestock, poisoned water, and defiled sacred sites. The conflict continued until 1996.Operation Sophia aimed to wipe out the entire Mayan population. The army killed 200,000 people and displaced another 1.5 million. They destroyed villages, slaughtered livestock, poisoned water supplies, and desecrated sacred structures. The conflict didn't end until 1996.

The genocide of the.Batwa people.The Batwa, also called the Pygmies, face a genocide that continues today. The Batwa are hunter-gatherers who historically lived in the forests of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Throughout the 20th century, armed groups forced the Batwa off their land, leaving them without ways to hunt or find medicine. In 1999, their displacement turned to mass slaughter. Armed groups in the region began hunting and killing the Batwa, believing them subhuman. One estimate suggests.70,000 Batwa.70,000 Batwa have been.70,000 Batwa have been killed in these conflicts.70,000 Batwa have been killed in these conflicts.

This shows another horrible case where a colonial nation committed genocide against its indigenous population. Between 1910 and 1970, the Australian government took as many as.100,000 Aboriginal children.They moved children from their families into foster homes. The aim was to totally sever the children's ties to their culture and help the race disappear.

A 1997 report found this foster care program was genocide. A former Australian prime minister...publicly announcedhe disagreed with that finding.

After the Allies kicked the Nazi regime out of Germany, troops led by General Dwight Eisenhower took control of the country, taking hundreds of thousands of...prisonersThe Geneva Convention demanded that prisoners of war receive the same food rations as American troops.

Historian...James Bacque, Eisenhower changed the designation for these prisoners from POW to "Disarmed Enemy Forces" to get around feeding them and providing medical supplies. Bacque says nearly one million German prisoners died from lack of food, shelter, and medical supplies.