MORE HORRIFIC MASSACRES IN HISTORY

HAMIDIAN MASSACRES

Also known as the $B!H(BArmenian Massacres of 1894–1896$B!m(B and the

$B!H(BGreat Massacres,$B!G(B these atrocities were once again committed by

the Ottoman Empire. The deaths ranged from 80,000 to 300,000

leaving at least 50,000 children orphaned. The massacres were due to

the Ottoman Empire seeking to establish its territorial authority and

to reassert Pan-Islamism as the state ideology.

BUD DAJO MASSACRE

Also known as the $B!H(BMoro Crater Massacre,$B!I(B the violence committed

against the Moro villagers in the Philippines by a naval detachment of

540 American soldiers during the Philippine-American War was another

relatively small massacre compared to some others (roughly 1,000

casualties) but it is certainly one of the worst attacks ever perpetrated

by a democratically-inclined modern government.

ADANA MASSACRE

This 1909 massacre of Armenian Christians by Ottoman Turks in

the city of Adana amidst governmental upheaval resulted in a series

of anti-Armenian mob violence throughout the district. Reports estimated

that the massacres in Adana Province resulted in 15,000 to 30,000 deaths.

NANKING MASSACRE

The Nanking Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, was a

mass murder that occurred during the six-week period following the

Japanese capture of the city of Nanking (Nanjing), the former capital of

China, on December 13, 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

During this period, hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and

disarmed soldiers were murdered by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese

Army. Widespread rape and looting also occurred. Historians and

witnesses have estimated that 250,000 to 300,000 people were killed.

KATYN MASSACRE

Also known as the $B!F(BKatyn Forest Massacre,$B!G(B this mass execution

ordered by the Soviet Politburo on March 5, 1940 was carried out

by the secret police against Polish military officers, civilian prisoners,

and members of the Polish Officer Corps. Approved by Joseph Stalin,

it was estimated that about 22,000 were executed in Katyn Forest.

MASSACRE OF THE PRISONERS

The NKVD prisoner massacres were a series of mass executions

committed by the Soviet NKVD against prisoners in Eastern Europe,

primarily Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic states, Bessarabia and other parts

of the Soviet Union from which the Red Army was withdrawing

after the German invasion in 1941 (see Operation Barbarossa). Estimates

on the death toll vary from nearly 9000 to 100,000. Not all prisoners

were murdered; some of them were abandoned or managed to escape

because the retreating, panicked Soviet executioners logistically

could not kill all of them.

BABI YAR MASSACRE

Considered the $B!H(Blargest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust$B!I(B

this atrocity happened in a ravine near Kiev, Ukraine from September

29 to 30, 1941 wherein 33,771 Jews were executed by the Nazis during

their campaign against the Soviet Union. Victims of other Babi Yar

massacres included tens of thousands of Soviet POWs, Gypsies

(Romani people), communists, civilian hostages, and

Ukrainian nationalists.

ODESSA MASSACRE

The mass murder of Jews in Odessa, Ukraine and the surrounding towns

of Transnistria by the Romanian invaders resulted in the deaths of more

than 100,000 Ukrainian Jews with any survivors being left to freeze

outdoors after their village was completely razed.