What Is Ethnic Cleansing and How Was It Used in the Former

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The Answer is Ethnic cleansing is the systematic and deliberate removal of people of a particular ethnic group from a specific geographic area through the use of violence, intimidation, and forced displacement.

In the former Yugoslavia, ethnic cleansing was used as a brutal tactic during the conflicts that followed the breakup of the country in the 1990s. The most well-known example of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the Bosnian Serb forces, led by Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, targeted Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and Bosnian Croat populations for expulsion and extermination. This campaign included mass killings, rape, and the forced displacement of millions of people. The most infamous incident of ethnic cleansing during this time was the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, where over 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were systematically killed by Bosnian Serb forces.

The ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia resulted in widespread human rights abuses, displacement of millions of people, and the creation of ethnically homogeneous territories. It was a tragic and devastating chapter in European history and led to the eventual intervention of international forces to try to bring an end to the violence and establish peace in the region.

What Is Ethnic Cleansing and How Was It Used in the Former

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