page_title: Feud
section_title: Vendetta in modern times
hierarchical_section_title: Feud / Blood feuds/vendetta / Vendetta in modern times
caption_attribution_description: العربية: المباني المُرتفعة المُكوَّنة من عدَّة طوابق في مدينة شبام، بِوادي حضرموت في اليمن. English: The high-rise architectures at Shibam, Wadi Hadhramaut (or Hadhramout, Hadramawt) Yemen. Français&#160;: L'architecture tout en hauteur du village de Shibam, dans l'Hadramaout, au Yemen. Italiano: Lew alte costruzioni a Shibam, Wadi Hadhramaut (o Hadhramout, Hadramawt) in Yemen.
context_page_description: A feud is a long-running argument or fight between parties. In most cases it involves whole familles or clans. People are seen as guilty, not because they did something, but because they were seen with other people. This is called guilt by association.
  Feuds start because one party thinks they were attacked, insulted, or otherwise harmed by the other party. Intense feelings of resentment trigger the initial revenge, which causes the other party to feel the same way. The dispute is then fueled by a long-running cycle of retaliatory violence. This ongoing cycle of provocation and retaliation makes it very difficult to end the feud peacefully. Feuds frequently involve the original parties' family members and/or associates. They can last for generations.
  Up to the early modern period, feuds were considered legitimate legal instruments. The state or ruler even made laws for certain aspects of feuds. Once modern centralizing states asserted and enforced a monopoly on legitimate use of force, feuds became illegal and the concept acquired its current negative connotation.
context_section_description: Vendetta is reputedly still practiced in some areas in France (especially Corsica) and Italy (especially Sicily, Sardinia, Campania, Calabria, Apulia, and other areas of Southern Italy), in Crete (Greece), among Kurdish clans in Iraq and Turkey, in northern Albania, among Pashtuns in Afghanistan, among Somali clans, over land in Nigeria, in India (a caste-related feuds among rival Hindu groups), between rival tribes in the north-east Indian state of Assam, among rival clans in China and Philippines, among the Arab Bedouins and Arab tribes inhabiting the mountains of Yemen and between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq, in southern Ethiopia, among the highland tribes of New Guinea,  in Svaneti, in the mountainous areas of Dagestan, many northern areas of Georgia and Azerbaijan, a number of republics of the northern Caucasus and essentially among Chechen teips where those seeking retribution do not accept or respect the local law enforcement authority.  Vendettas are generally abetted by a perceived or actual indifference on behalf of local law enforcement. 
  In Albania, the blood feud has returned in rural areas after more than 40 years of being abolished by Albanian communists led by Enver Hoxha. More than 5,500 Albanian families are currently engaged in blood feuds. There are now more than 20,000 men and boys who live under an ever-present death sentence because of blood feuds. Since 1992, at least 10,000 Albanians have been killed due to blood feuds.
  Mutual vendetta may develop into a vicious circle of further killings, retaliation, counterattacks, and all-out warfare that can end in the mutual extinction of both families. Often the original cause is forgotten, and feuds continue simply because it is perceived that there has always been a feud.
  There is a scene in The Godfather, in which Michael Corleone, hiding from U.S. police in Sicily, walks through a village with his two bodyguards. Michael asks, "Where are all the men?" The bodyguard replies, "They're all dead from vendettas."
  Some of the gang wars between organized crime groups are effectively forms of vendetta, where the criminal organization (like the Mafia "family") has taken the place of blood relatives.
caption: In rural Yemen, state authority is weak, and disputes between tribes are frequently solved through violence.[26]
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