page_title: List of ethnic cleansing campaigns
section_title: 1990s
hierarchical_section_title: List of ethnic cleansing campaigns / 20th century / 1990s
caption_attribution_description: Shqip: Eksodi i shqiptarve teKosoves gjate vitit 99
context_page_description: Not all experts agree on every case, particularly since there are a variety of definitions for the term ethnic cleansing. Where claims of ethnic cleansing originate from non-experts this is noted.
context_section_description: In 1990, inter-ethnic tensions escalated in Bhutan, resulting in the flight of many Lhotshampa, or ethnic Nepalis, from Bhutan to Nepal, many of whom were expelled by the Bhutanese military. By 1996, over 100,000 Bhutanese refugees were living in refugee camps in Nepal. Many have since been resettled in Western nations. One reason for this expulsion was the desire of the Bhutanese government to remove a largely Hindu population and preserve its Buddhist culture and identity.
  In 1991, as part of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, during Operation Ring, Soviet troops and the predominantly Azerbaijani soldiers in the AzSSR OMON and army forcibly uprooted Armenians living in the 24 villages strewn across Shahumyan to leave their homes and settle elsewhere in Nagorno-Karabakh or in the neighboring Armenian SSR. Human rights organizations documented a wide number of human rights violations and abuses committed by Soviet and Azerbaijani forces and many of them properly characterised them as ethnic cleansing. These violations and abuses included forced deportations of civilians, unlawful killings, torture, kidnapping harassment, rape and the wanton seizure or destruction of property. Despite fierce protests, no measures were taken either to prevent the human rights abuses or to punish the perpetrators. Approximately 17,000 Armenians living in twenty-three of Shahumyan's villages were deported out of the region.
  In 1991, following a crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in Burma, 250,000 refugees took shelter in the Cox's Bazar district of neighboring Bangladesh.
  After the Gulf War in 1991, Kuwait conducted a campaign of expulsion against the Palestinians living in the country, who before the war had numbered 400,000. Some 200,000 who had fled during the Iraqi occupation were banned from returning, while the remaining 200,000 were pressured into leaving by the authorities, who conducted a campaign of terror, violence, and economic pressure to get them to leave. The Palestinians expelled from Kuwait moved to Jordan, where they had citizenship. The policy which partly led to this exodus was a response to the alignment of PLO leader Yasser Arafat with Saddam Hussein.
  As a result of the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War, about 100,000 ethnic Ossetians fled South Ossetia and Georgia proper, most across the border into North Ossetia. A further 23,000 ethnic Georgians fled South Ossetia and settled in other parts of Georgia.
  According to Helsinki Watch, the campaign of ethnic-cleansing was orchestrated by the Ossetian militants, during the events of the Ossetian–Ingush conflict, which resulted in the expulsion of approximately 60,000 Ingush inhabitants from Prigorodny District.
  The widespread ethnic cleansing accompanying the Croatian War of Independence that was committed by Serb-led Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and rebel militia in the occupied areas of Croatia (self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina) (1991–1995). Large numbers of Croats and non-Serbs were removed, either by murder, deportation or by being forced to flee. According to the ICTY indictment against Slobodan Milošević, there was an expulsion of around 170,000 to 250,000 Croats and other non-Serbs from their home,   in addition to an estimated 10,000 Croats that were also killed. Also, around 10,000 Croats left Vojvodina in 1992 due to persecution by Serb nationalists. Milan Martić, Milan Babić and Vojislav Šešelj were convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for persecution on racial, ethnic or religious ground, deportation and/or forcible displacement as a crime against humanity.
  In February 1992, hundreds of ethnic Azeris and Meskhetian Turks are massacred as Armenian troops capture the city of Khojaly in Nagorno-Karabakh.
  Widespread ethnic cleansing accompanied the War in Bosnia (1992–1995). Large numbers of Croats and Bosniaks were forced to flee their homes by the Army of the Republika Srpska, large numbers of Serbs and Bosniaks by the Croatian Defence Council and Serbs and Croats by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Beginning in 1991, p
caption: Kosovo Albanian refugees in 1999
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