Modern Genocides Genocide means trying to destroy a

Modern Genocides Genocide means trying to destroy a group which is or is similar to an ethnic group or a religious group by killing its members.

Native Americans � Epidemic disease was the overwhelming direct cause of the population decline of the American natives � After first contacts with Europeans and Africans, some believe that the death of 90 to 95% of the native population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases such as small pox and measles � Some estimates indicate case fatality rates of 80 -90% in Native American populations during smallpox epidemics

Rwandan Genocide �The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass killing of an estimated 800, 000 people. �Begun by the Hutu majority directed against the Tutsi minority � 2 million refugees

Boy surrounded by corpses

Machete scars

Bosnia-Herzegovina 1992 -1995 � Genocide committed by the Serbs against the Muslims � Yugoslavia=created after WWI by Allied powers, included different (and hostile) ethnic and religious groups � 1990’s: Slobodan Milosevic: former communist, now nationalist tried to keep the countries together � Serbian Christians being “mistreated” by Croatian Muslims-led to attack � Sarajevo-city in Bosnia, snipers killed civilians, including over 3, 500 children

Inmates at a Serbian concentration camp

Serbian brutality

Genocide in Darfur-2003 �Arab militia, backed by the country of Sudan, trying to take power �Non-Arab Sudanese (mostly “black”) people felt oppressed, whoever controls the gov’t controls the oil wealth • Arab militia is supported by China (for oil) � 400, 000 killed, 2. 5 million refugees

Darfur children are often kidnapped and sold into slavery

Mass graves