commits genocide

List of wars and disasters by death toll

This is a list of wars and human-made disasters by death toll. Some events overlap categories.

Wars and armed conflicts

These figures of one million or more deaths include the deaths of civilians from diseases, famine, etc., as well as deaths of soldiers in battle and possible massacre and genocide.

Where only one estimate is available, it appears in both the low and high estimates. This is a sortable table. Click on the column sort buttons to sort results numerically or alphabetically.

Highest Estimate	Event	Location	From	To	See also
72,000,000	World War II	The fighting took place in Asia, Europe, Africa, Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Middle East, Arctic, Oceania, and Indian Ocean	1939	1945	World War II casualties and Sino-Japanese War
	An Shi Rebellion	China	756	763	Medieval warfare
60,000,000	Mongol Conquests	Asia, Europe, Middle East	1207	1472	Mongol invasions and Tatar invasions
	Manchu conquest of the Ming Dynasty	China	1616	1662	Qing Dynasty
+	Taiping Rebellion	China	1851	1864	Dungan revolt
	World War I. (High estimate incl. Spanish flu deaths)	Europe, Middle East, Asia, Pacific, Atlantic, and Africa	1914	1918	World War I casualties
	Conquests of Timur	Middle East, India, Asia, Russia	1369	1405	List of wars in the Muslim world
	Russian Civil War	Russia	1917	1921	List of civil wars
	Second Congo War	Democratic Republic of the Congo	1998	2003	First Congo War
	Napoleonic Wars	Europe, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean	1804	1815	Napoleonic Wars casualties
	Thirty Years' War	Germany	1618	1648
	Yellow Turban Rebellion	China	184	205	Part of Three Kingdoms War
	Korean War	Korean Peninsula	1950	1953	Cold War
	Vietnam War	South East Asia	1959	1975	Indochina War
	French Wars of Religion	France	1562	1598	Religious war
Shaka's conquests	Africa	1816	1828
	Afghan Civil War	Afghanistan	1979	present	Soviet invasion

Noncombatant

This section lists campaigns either aimed at or resulting in significant mortality of noncombatants, excluding victims of collateral damage from war.

Lowest Estimate	Highest Estimate	Event	Location	From	To	Notes
27,000,000	72,000,000	Cultural Revolution, Political repression & Great Leap Forward famine, see note	Peoples Republic of China	1949	1975	Mao Zedong, Communist Party of China
15,450,000	21,000,000	Democides of Nazi Germany under Hitler, including the Holocaust	Europe	1933	1945	See Holocaust and Consequences of German Nazism
13,778,000	20,000,000	Democide of Native Americans by Europeans through various diseases	Americas	16th century	1900	Amerindian history and European colonization
6,000,000	30,000,000	Imperial Japan's occupation of Asia	Asia	1930s	1945	Japanese war crimes
4,000,000	60,000,000	Atlantic slave trade (including African tribal warfare promoted by the trade and more than 1 million who died during the trans-Atlantic crossings).	Africa, Americas	17th century	19th century
4,000,000	50,000,000	Political repression, including (in larger figure) Holodomor famine	Soviet Union	1932	1953	Number of Stalin's victims
3,600,000	3,600,000	Arab slave trade	Africa, Asia, Europe	9th century	21st century	Islam and slavery and Slavery in modern Africa
3,000,000	22,000,000	Depopulation (from forced labour & consequent spread of disease, massacres)	Congo Free State	1877	1908	Leopold II of Belgium
~1,500,000	~1,500,000	Great Potato Famine (An Gorta Mór)	Ireland	1845	1849 (1852 in some regions)
1,000,000	5,000,000	Democide of Chinese Muslims	China	1856	1873	Panthay Rebellion Muslim Rebellion
26,000	3,000,000	1971 Bangladesh atrocities	East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)	1971	1971	Atrocities against Bengalis and other ethnicities in East Pakistan by the Pakistani military, leading to the Bangladesh Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
800,000	1,000,000	Partition of India	India	1947	1948
750,000	800,000	Blockade of Germany, World War I	Germany	1914	1919
500,000+	1,000,000+	Anticommunist purge	Indonesia	1965	1965
50,000	400,000	Nanking Massacre	Nanking, China	1937	1938	See Nanking Massacre
300,000	500,000	Democide	Uganda	1971	1979	Idi Amin
300,000	300,000	Ethnic cleansing of Circassians	Caucasus	1763	1864	Russian-Circassian War
150,000	500,000	Mass killings, Genocide	Ethiopia	1974	1991	Marxist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam
150,000	150,000	Harrying of the North	England	1069	1070	William the Conqueror
100,000	1,200,000	Democide of Tibetans (included in totals for People's Republic of China above)	Tibet	1950	present	The Great Leap Forward and political repressions
80,000	230,000	Mass executions during and after the Spanish Civil War	Spain	1936	1940s	Francisco Franco
80,000	80,000	Mass killings	Equatorial Guinea	1968	1979	Francisco Macías Nguema
72,000+	252,000	Russian pogroms	Russia	1881	1922	Revolution/Civil War
50,000	100,000	Taiwan under Japanese rule	Taiwan	1895	1945
72,000	72,000	Executions	England	1509	1547	Henry VIII
40,000	100,000	Massacres	Wallachia	1448	1462	Vlad III the Impaler
18,000	60,000	Reign of Terror	France	1793	1794	Jacobin Club
30,000	30,000	Political repression	Haiti	1964	1971	"Papa Doc" Duvalier
10,000	30,000	The Dirty War	Argentina	1976	1983
27,927	27,927	Boer women and children in British concentration camps	Primarily in The Transvaal and the Orange Free State, to a lesser extent the Colony of Natal and Cape Colony (all today's South Africa)	1899	1902	Second Boer War
15,000	23,000	Political repression	Cuba	1959	2007	Fidel Castro
12,000	24,000	The 228 Incident	Taiwan	1947	1947	Kwo Mintang (KMT)
3,000	3,000	Political repression	Chile	1973	1990	Augusto Pinochet
885	885	Political repression	Philippines	2001	Date	Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

Genocide

The CPPCG defines genocide in part as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

Determining what historical events constitute a genocide and which are merely criminal or inhuman behavior is not a clearcut matter. In nearly every case where accusations of genocide have circulated, partisans of various sides have fiercely disputed the interpretation and details of the event, often to the point of promoting wildly different versions of the facts. An accusation of genocide therefore, will almost always be controversial.

The following list of genocides and alleged genocides should be understood in this context and not necessarily regarded as the final word on the events in question.

Lowest Estimate	Highest Estimate	Event	Location	From	To	Notes
<3,000,000	30,000,000+	Japanese war crimes	Asia	1937	1945	Also known as the Asian Holocaust, occurring at around the same as when Nazi Germany was in power during World War II.
11,000,000	16,300,000	Genocides of Nazi Germany	Europe	1933	1945	Well established, in spite of Holocaust denial. See Holocaust, Consequences of German Nazism
2,500,000	5,000,000	Holodomor, famine, political repression	Soviet Ukraine	1932	1933	A highly disputed genocide of the Ukrainian nation by the government of Joseph Stalin. The goal was forced collectivisation of farmers, destruction of the Ukrainian national spirit and cultural elite that emerged in the beginning of the 20th century.
1,700,000	3,000,000	Famine, political repression	Cambodia	1975	1979	As of September 2007, no one has been found guilty of participating in this genocide, but on 19 September 2007 Nuon Chea, second in command of the Khmer Rouge and its most senior surviving member, was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. He will face Cambodian and United Nations appointed foreign judges at the special genocide tribunal.
26,000	3,000,000	1971 Bangladesh atrocities	East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)	1971	1971	Atrocities in East Pakistan by the Pakistani military, leading to the Bangladesh Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, are widely regarded as a genocide against Bengali people, but to date no one has yet been indicted for such a crime.
200,000	2,100,000	Armenian genocide	Turkey	1895	1923	By 2003, fifteen national assemblies had voted to recognise that this was a genocide, but the Turkish government while accepting that many died does not recognize the episode as a genocide.
500,000	3,000,000	Rwandan genocide	Rwanda	1994	1994	Hutu killed unarmed men, women and children. Some perpetrators of the genocide have been found guilty by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, but most have not been charged due to no witness accounts.
400,000	655,000	Ustashe massacres of Serbs, Jews, Roma	Balkans	1941	1945	No academic consensus if this was persecution or genocide during period of Independent State of Croatia
100,000	300,000	Nanking Massacre	Nanking	1937	1938	The Nanking Massacre, commonly known as the Rape of Nanking, was an infamous genocidal war crime committed by the Japanese military in Nanjing, then capital of the Republic of China, after it fell to the Imperial Japanese Army on 13 December 1937.
225,000	225,000	Depopulation of Australian aborigines	Australia	1788	1888	No academic consensus that this was a genocide, see Australian genocide debate
200,000	400,000	Darfur conflict	Sudan	2003	present	See International response to the Darfur conflict
130,000	200,000	Massacres of Mayan Indians	Guatemala	1962	1996	Genocide according to the Historical Clarification Commission.
117,000	500,000	Revolt in the Vendée	France	1793	1796	Described as genocide by some historians. See also French Revolution
150,000	300,000	Political repression of East Timorese	East Timor	1975	1990s	Commonly referred to as genocide by media, scholars.
100,000	400,000	Political repression of West Papuans	Indonesia	1961	present	Genocide according to some sources, see Genocide in West Papua
100,000	200,000	Al-Anfal Campaign	Iraq	1986	1989	Ba'athist Iraq destroys over 2,000 villages and commits genocide on their Kurdish population.
50,000	100,000	Massacres of Hutus	Burundi	1972	1972	Tutsi government massacres of Hutu, see Burundi genocide
50,000	50,000	Massacres of Tutsis	Burundi	1993	1993	Hutu government massacres of Tutsi, see Burundi genocide
40,000	100,000	Herero and Namaqua genocide	Namibia	1904	1908	Generally accepted. See also Imperial Germany
2,000	8,000	Srebenica massacre	Srebenica	1995	1995	A genocidal massacre according to the ICTY. See also Bosnia war.
4,000	8,000	Genocide of Abkhaz by Georgians	Georgia	1992	present	See also Georgian-Abkhaz armed conflict

Individual extermination camps

1,500,000-4,000,000 - Auschwitz extermination camp (by Nazi-Germany, located in Oświęcim, Poland, 1940-1945)
1,000,000-1,400,000 - Treblinka extermination camp, (by Nazi Germany, located in Treblinka, Poland, 1942-1943)
53,000 -840,000 - Jasenovac extermination camp - (by NDH Ustaše Nazi regime in Croatia.)
480,000-600,000 - Belzec extermination camp, (by Nazi Germany, located in Belzec Poland, 1942-1943)
350,000 - Majdanek extermination camp, (by Nazi Germany, located in Lublin Poland, 1942-1944)
300,000 - Chelmno extermination camp, (by Nazi Germany, located in Chelmno Poland, 1941-1943)
260,000 - Sobibór extermination camp, (by Nazi Germany, located in Sobibor Poland, 1942-1943)
55,000 - Neuengamme concentration camp, (by Nazi Germany, located by Hamburg, Germany, 1938-1945)

Man-made famines

This section includes famines where most scholars agree that it was caused or exacerbated by the policies of the ruling regime. See also Famine and List of famines

Lowest Estimate	Highest Estimate	Event	Location	From	To	Notes
20,000,000	43,000,000	Great Leap Forward famine under the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong	People's Republic of China	1959	1962
6,000,000	10,000,000	Famine in the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, including Holodomor	Soviet Union	1932	1933	As of November 2006, the Ukraine government was trying to get this mass starvation recognised by the United Nations as an act of genocide, with Russian government and many members of the Ukrainian parliament opposing such a move.
500,000	2,000,000	Great Irish Famine in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland	United Kingdom	1846	1849

Human sacrifice and ritual suicide

This section lists tolls from the systematic practice of human sacrifice or suicide. For notable individual episodes, see Human sacrifice and mass suicide.

Lowest Estimate	Highest Estimate	Description	Group	Location	From	To	Notes
300,000	6,000,000	Human sacrifice	Aztecs	Mexico	14th century	1521	Human sacrifice in Aztec culture
62,400	62,400	Ritual suicides	Sati	India	18th century	1988?
13,000	13,000	Human sacrifice	Shang dynasty	China	BC1300	BC1050	Last 250 years of rule
3,912	3,912	Kamikaze suicide pilots, see note	Imperial Japanese air forces	Pacific theatre	1944	1945