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10 Worst State-Sponsored Genocides
The very word genocide is controversial and has been used for political purposes so frequently that it has almost lost its meaning. It is defined by the United Nations as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” The definition of a holocaust, any slaughter or destruction on a mass scale, is broader and can intersect with a genocide. Genocides are intentional acts while holocausts may or not be intentional.
It is impossible to rank genocides or holocausts in any meaningful way. How is human suffering quantified, measured or compared? And yet it is important to be reminded of depths to which human cruelty can sink if left unchecked. After the Nazi genocide of the 20th century, the phrase “Never Again” was used by survivors of the Nazi genocide and indeed by people of good faith all over the world, and yet genocide, mass killings and ethnic cleansing have continued into the 21st century, begging the question: how committed is the world to ensuring the end of murder on a mass scale? It may be a useful exercise, then, to remember the history of some of the world’s most atrocious holocausts and genocides, if only to remind ourselves of the need for constant vigilance and advocacy for the intrinsic human rights of all. Below is a list, in chronological order, of 10 of history’s most notorious genocides and holocausts.
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