Androcide Androcide is the systematic killing of men for various reasons , usually cultural . Androcide may happen during war to reduce an enemy ' s potential fighting capability . History . Androcide was a common practice in ancient times . Mythological accounts of the Greek takeover of Miletus in circa 9th century BC have the legendary son of Poseidon , Neleus , leading a massacre of the men of Miletus and settling the city in the Milesian men ' s stead . Biblical androcides include the revenge for the violation of Dinah in the Book of Genesis , in which Dinah ’ s brothers , Simeon and Levi , killed all of the males in the city Shechem , because Shechem , the son of Hamor and prince of the land , had sexual intercourse with Dinah ( it is debated whether it was rape , seduction , or other consensual intercourse ) when she went to visit the women of the town . Other biblical androcides were aimed at children , such as in the Book of Deuteronomy , in which the pharaoh decided that the Israelite s had become too numerous so he ordered the death of all male infants , or the later Massacre of the Innocents , as recounted in the Book of Matthew , in which Herod the Great ordered the death of all males under the age of two in the town of Bethlehem in an attempt to kill the prophesied " king of the Jews " . The Czech village of Lidice , as part of the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia , was on orders from Reichsführer - SS Heinrich Himmler completely destroyed by German forces in reprisal for the assassination of Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich in the late spring of 1942 . On 10 June 1942 , all 173 men over 16 years of age from the village were murdered . More recent examples include the 1988 Anfal campaign against Kurdish males that were considered “ battle - aged ” ( or approximately ages 15 – 50 ) in Iraqi Kurdistan . While many of these deaths took place after the Kurdish men were captured and processed at concentration camp , the worst instances of the androcide happened at the end of the campaign ( August 25 - September 6 , 1988 ) . This was launched immediately after the signing of a ceasefire with Iran , which allowed the transfer of large amounts of men and matériel from the southern battlefronts . The final Anfal focused on " the steep , narrow valleys of Badinan , a four - thousand - square mile chunk of the Zagros Mountains bounded on the east by the Great Zab and on the north by Turkey . " Here , uniquely in the Anfal campaigns , lists of the " disappeared " provided to Human Rights Watch / Middle East by survivors " invariably included only adult and teenage males , with the single exception of Assyrians and Yezidi Kurds , " who were subsidiary targets of the slaughter . Many of the men of Badinan did not even make it as far as " processing " stations , being simply " lined up and murdered at their point of capture , summarily executed by firing squads on the authority of a local military officer . " Another recent incident of androcide was the Srebrenica massacre of approximately 8 , 000 Bosniak men and boys on July 12 , 1995 , ruled as an act of genocide by the International Court of Justice . From the morning of 12 July , Serb forces began gathering men and boys from the refugee population in Potočari and holding them in separate locations , and as the refugees began boarding the buses headed north towards Bosniak - held territory , Serb soldiers separated out men of military age who were trying to clamber aboard . Occasionally , younger and older men were stopped as well ( some as young as 14 or 15 ) . These men were taken to a building in Potočari referred to as the “ White House ” . As early as the evening of 12 July 1995 , Major Franken of the Dutchbat heard that no men were arriving with the women and children at their destination in Kladanj . On 13 July 1995 , Dutchbat troops witnessed definite signs that the Serb soldiers were murdering some of the Bosniak men who had been separated . For example , Corporal Vaasen saw two soldiers take a man behind the " White House " , heard a shot and saw the two soldiers reappear alone . Another Dutchbat officer saw Serb soldiers murder an unarmed man with a single gunshot to the head and heard gunshots 20 – 40 times an hour throughout the afternoon . When the Dutchbat soldiers told Colonel Joseph Kingori , a United Nations Military Observer ( UNMO ) in the Srebrenica area , that men were being taken behind the " White House " and not coming back , Colonel Kingori went to investigate . He heard gunshots as he approached , but was stopped by Serb soldiers before he could find out what was going on . Some of the executions were carried out at night under arc lights , and industrial bulldozers then pushed the bodies into mass graves . According to evidence collected from Bosniaks by French policeman Jean - René Ruez , some were buried alive ; he also heard testimony describing Serb forces killing and torturing refugees at will , streets littered with corpses , people committing suicide to avoid having their noses , lips and ears chopped off , and adults being forced to watch the soldiers kill their children .