List of war crimes
This article lists and summarizes the war crimes that have been committed since these crimes were first defined in the Rome Statute. Since many war crimes are not prosecuted (due to lack of political will, lack of effective procedures, or other practical and political reasons), historians and lawyers will often make a serious case that war crimes occurred, even if there was no formal investigations or prosecution of the alleged crimes or an investigation cleared the alleged perpetrators. War crimes under international law were firmly established by international trials such as the Nuremberg Trials and the  Tokyo Trials, in which Austrian, German and Japanese leaders were prosecuted for war crimes committed during World War II. 1876: April Uprising. The Batak massacre was a massacre of Bulgarians in Batak by Ottoman irregular troops in 1876 at the beginning of the April Uprising. The number of victims ranges from 1,200 to 7,000, depending on the source. 1877–1878: Russo-Turkish War. During the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), both sides carried out war crimes, including massacres, ethnic cleansing policy, and rape: 1894–1897 Armenian massacres. The Hamidian massacres, also called the "Armenian massacres", were massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire  in the mid-1890s. Estimated casualties ranged from 100,000 to 300,000, resulting in 50,000 orphaned children. 1899–1902 Second Boer War. The term "concentration camp" was used to describe camps operated by the British Empire in South Africa during the Second Boer War in the years 1900–1902. As Boer farms were destroyed by the British under their "scorched earth" policy, many tens of thousands of women and children were forcibly moved into the concentration camps. Over 26,000 Boer women and children were to perish in these concentration camps. 1899–1902 Philippine–American War. Reported American war crimes and atrocities during the Philippine–American  War included the summary execution of civilians and prisoners, burning of villages, rape, and torture. 298,000 Filipinos were also moved to concentration camps, where thousands died. In November 1901, the Manila correspondent of the "Philadelphia Ledger" wrote: "The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe engagement; our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog". In response to the Balangiga massacre, which wiped out a U.S. company garrisoning Samar town , U.S. Brigadier General Jacob H. Smith launched a retaliatory march across Samar with the instructions: "I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States". 1904–1908: Herero Wars. In August, German General Lothar von Trotha defeated the Ovaherero in the Battle of Waterberg and drove them into the desert of Omaheke, where most of them died of dehydration. In October, the Nama people also rebelled against the Germans, only  to suffer a similar fate. Between 24,000 and 100,000 Hereros, 10,000 Nama and an unknown number of San died in the parallel Herero and Namaqua genocide. Once defeated, thousands of Hereros and Namas were also imprisoned in concentration camps, where the majority died of diseases, abuse, and exhaustion. German soldiers also regularly engaged in gang rapes before killing the women or leaving them in the desert to die; a number of Herero women were also forced into involuntary prostitution. 1914–1918: World War I. World War I was the first major international conflict to take place following the codification of war  crimes at the Hague Convention of 1907, including derived war crimes, such as the use of poisons as weapons, as well as crimes against humanity, and derivative crimes against humanity, such as torture, and genocide. Before, the Second Boer War took place after the Hague Convention of 1899. The Second Boer War (1899 until 1902) is known for the first concentration camps (1900 until 1902) for civilians in the 20th century. 1936–1939: Spanish Civil War. At least 50,000 people were executed during the Spanish Civil War. In his updated history of the Spanish Civil War, Antony Beevor writes, "Franco's  ensuing 'white terror' claimed 200,000 lives. The 'red terror' had already killed 38,000." Julius Ruiz concludes that "although the figures remain disputed, a minimum of 37,843 executions were carried out in the Republican zone with a maximum of 150,000 executions (including 50,000 after the war) in Nationalist Spain." César Vidal puts the number of Republican victims at 110,965. In 2008 a Spanish judge, Socialist Baltasar Garzón, opened an investigation into the executions and disappearances of 114,266 people between 17 July 1936 and December 1951. Among the murders and executions investigated was that of poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca. 1946–1954 : Indochina War. The French Union's struggle against the independence movement backed by the Soviet Union and China claimed 500,000 to 1.5 million Vietnamese lives from 1945 to 1954. In the Haiphong massacre of 1946, about 6,000 Vietnamese were killed by naval artillery. The French employed electric shock treatment during interrogations of the Vietnamese, and nearly 10,000 Vietnamese perished in French concentration camps. About French massacres and war crimes during the conflict, Christopher Goscha wrote on "The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam": "Rape became a disturbing weapon used by the Expeditionary Corps, as did summary executions. Young Vietnamese women who  could not escape approaching enemy patrols smeared themselves with any stinking thing they could find, including human excrement. Decapitated heads were raised on sticks, bodies were gruesomely disemboweled, and body parts were taken as 'souvenirs'; Vietnamese soldiers of all political color salso commited such acts. The non-communist nationalist singer, Phạm Duy, wrote a bone-chilling ballad about the mothers of Gio Linh village in central Vietnam, each of whom had lost a son to a French Army massacre in 1948. Troops decapitated their bodies and displayed their heads along a public road to strike fear into those tempted to  accept the Democratic Republic of Vietnam's sovereignty. Massacres did not start with the Americans in My Lai, or the Vietnamese communists in Hue in 1968. And yet, the French Union's massacre of over two hundred Vietnamese women and children in My Tratch in 1948 remains virtually unkown in France to this day." 1947–1948: Malagasy Uprising. The French repressed the independence movement with mass killings, village burnings, torture, war rape, collective punishment, and other atrocities such as throwing live prisoners out of airplanes (death flights). Up to 90,000 local residents died in the fighting, along with about 800 French  and other Europeans. 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Several massacres were committed during this war which could be described as war crimes. Nearly 15,000 people, mostly combatants and militants, were killed during the war, including 6,000 Jews and about 8,000 Arabs. 1954–1962: Algerian War. The insurgency began in 1945 and was revived in 1954, winning independence in the early 1960s. The French army killed thousands of Algerians in the first round of fighting in 1945. After the Algerian independence movement formed a National Liberation Front (FLN) in 1954, the French Minister of the Interior joined the Minister of National Defense in  1955 in ordering that every rebel carrying a weapon, suspected of doing so, or suspected of fleeing, must be shot. French troops executed civilians from nearby villages when rebel attacks occurred, tortured both rebels and civilians, and interned Arabs in camps, where forced labor was required of some of them. 2,000,000 Algerians were displaced or forcibly resettled during the war, and over 800 villages were destroyed from 1957 to 1960. Other French crimes included deliberate bombing, torture and mutilation of civilians, rape and sexual assaults, disembowelment of pregnant women, imprisonment without food in small cells, throwing detainees from helicopters and  into the sea with concrete on their feet, and burying people alive. The FLN also indulged in a large amount of atrocities, both against French pieds-noirs and against fellow Algerians whom they deemed as supporting the French or simply as refusing to support the Liberation effort. These crimes included killing unarmed children, women and the elderly, rape and disembowelment or decapitation of women and murdering children by slitting their throats or banging their heads against walls. French sources estimated that 70,000 Muslim civilians were killed, or abducted and presumed killed, by the FLN during the war. The FLN also  killed 30,000 to 150,000 in people in post-war reprisals. 1955–1975: Vietnam War. United States perpetrated crimes. During the war 95 U.S. Army personnel and 27 U.S. Marine Corps personnel were convicted by court-martial of the murder or manslaughter of Vietnamese. 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. Bihari and pro Pakistanis massacre in Bangladesh. It is estimated that Bangladesh guerilla army killed about 1,000 to 150,000 biharis or pro-Pakistani razakars. 1970–1975: Cambodian civil war. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the Prosecution of Crimes Committed During the Period of Democratic Kampuchea, commonly known as the Cambodia Tribunal , is a joint court established by the Royal Government of Cambodia and the United Nations to try senior members of the Khmer Rouge for crimes against humanity committed during the Cambodian Civil War. The Khmer Rouge killed many people due to their political affiliation, education, class origin, occupation, or ethnicity. 1975-1999: Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor. During the 1975 invasion and the subsequent occupation, a significant portion of East Timor's population died. Researcher Ben Kiernan says that "a toll of 150,000 is likely close to the truth", although estimates of 200,000 or higher have been suggested . 1978–2021: Civil war in Afghanistan. This war has ravaged the country for over 40 years, with several foreign actors playing important roles during different periods. From 2001 until 2021 US and NATO troops took part in the fighting in Afghanistan in the "War on Terror" that is also treated in the corresponding section below. 1980–1988: Iran–Iraq War. Over 100,000 civilians other than those killed in Saddam's genocide are estimated to have been killed by both sides of the war by R.J.Rummel. 1985–present: Uganda. "The Times" reports (November 26, 2005 p. 27): Almost 20 years of fighting... has  killed half a million people. Many of the dead are children... The LRA [a cannibalism cult] kidnaps children and forces them to join its ranks. And so, incredibly, children are not only the main victims of this war, but also its unwilling perpetrators... The girls told me they had been given to rebel commanders as "wives" and forced to bear them children. The boys said they had been forced to walk for days knowing they would be killed if they showed any weakness, and in some cases forced even to murder their family members... every night up to 10,000 children  walk into the centre of Kitgum... because they are not safe in their own beds... more than 25,000 children have been kidnapped ...this year an average of 20 children have been abducted every week. 1991–1999: Yugoslav wars. 1991–1995: Croatian War of Independence. Also see List of ICTY indictees for a variety of war criminals and crimes during this era. 1990–2000: Liberia / Sierra Leone. From "The Times" March 28, 2006 p. 43: 1991–2000/2002: Algerian Civil War. During the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s, a variety of massacres occurred through the country, many being identified as war crimes. The Armed Islamic  Group (GIA) has avowed its responsibility for many of them, while for others no group has claimed responsibility. In addition to generating a widespread sense of fear, these massacres and the ensuing flight of population have resulted in serious depopulation of the worst-affected areas. The massacres peaked in 1997 (with a smaller peak in 1994), and were particularly concentrated in the areas between Algiers and Oran, with very few occurring in the east or in the Sahara. 1994–1996/1999–2009: Russia-Chechnya Wars. During the First Chechen War (1994–1996) and Second Chechen War (1999–2000 battle phase, 2000–2009 insurgency phase) there were  many allegations of war crimes and terrorism against both sides from various human rights organizations. 2006 Lebanon War. Allegations of war crimes in the 2006 Lebanon War refer to claims of various groups and individuals, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and United Nations officials, who accused both Hezbollah and Israel of violating international humanitarian law during the 2006 Lebanon War, and warned of possible war crimes. These allegations included intentional attacks on civilian populations or infrastructure, disproportionate or indiscriminate attacks in densely populated residential districts. According to various media reports, between 1,000 and 1,200 Lebanese citizens were reported dead ; there were between 1,500 and 2,500 people wounded and over 1,000,000 were temporarily displaced. Over 150 Israelis were killed (120 military); thousands wounded; and 300,000–500,000 were displaced because of Hezbollah firing tens of thousands of rockets at major cities in Israel. 2003–2009/2010: Darfur conflict; 2005–2010: Civil war in Chad. During the Darfur conflict, Civil war in Chad (2005–2010) The conflict in Darfur has been variously characterised as a genocide. Sudanese authorities claim a death toll of roughly 19,500 civilians while many non-governmental organizations, such as the Coalition for International Justice, claim over 400,000 people have been killed. In September  2004, the World Health Organization estimated there had been 50,000 deaths in Darfur since the beginning of the conflict, an 18-month period, mostly due to starvation. An updated estimate the following month put the number of deaths for the six-month period from March to October 2004 due to starvation and disease at 70,000; These figures were criticised, because they only considered short periods and did not include deaths from violence. A more recent British Parliamentary Report has estimated that over 300,000 people have died, and others have estimated even more. 2008–2009 Gaza War. There were allegations of war  crimes by both the Israeli military and Hamas. Criticism of Israel's conduct focused on the proportionality of its measures against Hamas, and on its alleged use of weaponised white phosphorus. Numerous reports from human right groups during the war claimed that white phosphorus shells were being used by Israel, often in or near populated areas. In its early statements the Israeli military denied using any form of white phosphorus, saying "We categorically deny the use of white phosphorus". It eventually admitted to its limited use and stopped using the shells, including as a smoke screen. The Goldstone report investigating  possible war crimes in the 2009 war accepted that white phosphorus is not illegal under international law but did find that the Israelis were "systematically reckless in determining its use in build-up areas". It also called for serious consideration to be given to the banning of its use as an obscurant. 2009 Sri Lankan Civil War. There are allegations that war crimes were committed by the Sri Lankan military and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during the Sri Lankan Civil War, particularly during the final months of the conflict in 2009. The alleged war crimes include attacks  on civilians and civilian buildings by both sides; executions of combatants and prisoners by the government of Sri Lanka; enforced disappearances by the Sri Lankan military and paramilitary groups backed by them; acute shortages of food, medicine, and clean water for civilians trapped in the war zone; and child recruitment by the Tamil Tigers. A panel of experts appointed by UN Secretary-General (UNSG) Ban Ki-moon to advise him on the issue of accountability with regard to any alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the final stages of the civil war found "credible allegations" which , if proven, indicated that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed by the Sri Lankan military and the Tamil Tigers. The panel has called on the UNSG to conduct an independent international inquiry into the alleged violations of international law. The Sri Lankan government has denied that its forces committed any war crimes and has strongly opposed any international investigation. It has condemned the UN report as "fundamentally flawed in many respects" and "based on patently biased material which is presented without any verification". 2011–present: Syrian civil war. International organizations have accused the Syrian government, ISIL and other  opposition forces of severe human rights violations, with many massacres occurring. Chemical weapons have been used many times during the conflict as well. The Syrian government is reportedly responsible for the majority of civilian casualties and war crimes, often through bombings. In addition, tens of thousands of protesters and activists have been imprisoned and there are reports of torture in state prisons. Over 470,000 people were killed in the war by 2017. 2015–present: Kurdish–Turkish conflict. According to the U.S. State Department 2016 Human Rights Report, in February 2016, Turkish security forces killed at least 130 people, including unarmed  civilians, who had taken shelter in the basements of three buildings in the town of Cizre. A domestic NGO, The Human Rights Association (HRA), said the security forces killed more than 300 civilians in the first eight months of 2016. In March 2017, the United Nations voiced "concern" over the Turkish government's operations and called for an independent assessment of the "massive destruction, killings and numerous other serious human rights violations" against the ethnic Kurdish minority. 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated that "indiscriminate attacks on populated areas anywhere, including in Stepanakert, Ganja and other  localities in and around the immediate Nagorno-Karabakh zone of conflict, were totally unacceptable". Amnesty International stated that both Azerbaijani and Armenian forces committed war crimes during recent fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, and called on Azerbaijani and Armenian authorities to immediately conduct independent, impartial investigations, identify all those responsible, and bring them to justice. November 2020–present: Tigray War. During the Tigray War, which included fighting between the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) soldiers and Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) forces in the Tigray Region, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) described the 9–10 November 2020 Mai Kadra massacre  committed by Tigray youth group "Samri" in its 24 November 2020 preliminary report as "grave human rights violations which may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes". 2022–present: Russian invasion of Ukraine. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, multiple buildings such as airports, hospitals, kindergartens were bombed.Abuse of Russian prisoners of war, including some who were shot in the legs. The International Criminal Court has signalled its intention to investigate war crimes perpetrated by Russian forces. In April 2022 it was reported that there were bodies in the town of Bucha, Which had been left during the  occupation of the town. It was confirmed at least more than 300 bodies were in mass graves or stranded on the streets of Bucha. As of right now 22 April 2022 there has been more then 500 bodies confirmed. The Siege of Mariupol started on 24 February 2022 and is still ongoing there has been major destruction of the city and killings of civilians. It has been confirmed at least 21,000+ lives have been claimed through the siege. On 21 April 2022, Satellite images showed mass graves around the besieged city of Mariupol and a town near it. It  has been confirmed at least 9,000+ bodies have been found since. On the same day Vladimir Putin ordered troops to blockade the Azovstal Steel Plant, the last Ukrainian controlled place in the besieged city of Mariupol. The steel plant has more then 1,000 Ukrainians confirmed inside of it. As of right now the city is 95% destroyed and already mostly captured by Russian forces.