Zafimaniry villages were among those targeted for retaliation by French soldiers during the 1947 Uprising against colonial rule, leading many villagers to flee to the forest where they lived nomadically for two years. The Zafimaniry community was not particularly involved in the uprising but suffered disproportionately because their villages were located along the route taken by major instigator communities in the southeast to reach French encampments in the central highlands, leading the French to believe the Zafimaniry were complicit. As French forces "secured" various portions of Zafimaniry territory, they arrested the local inhabitants and sent them to concentration camps, sometimes burning down the villages as well.