History glossary
Ethnic cleansing
the forced removal of an ethnic or national group from a territory.
- Category
- Mass violence
What it means
Ethnic cleansing is not a neutral migration; it involves violence, intimidation, expulsion, rape, destruction of homes, and sometimes mass murder to make a territory more ethnically homogeneous. It became a major term during the wars in former Yugoslavia.
Related terms
Stories using this term
The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia fractured through crisis, nationalism, and war, collapsing violently in the 1990s.
The World After The Cold War
From the fall of the Soviet Union to the rise of China and global terrorism, this story traces the turbulent reshaping of the international order after 1991.
