According to the Minority Rights Group International (MRG) that trends annual indexes, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan have been topping annual lists for four straight years of countries where genocide, mass killings, or violent repression victimizes the minority population.

The human rights group gives a more chilling conclusion: countries involved in the so-called ‘war on terror’ have actually been utilizing the principle behind such a ‘war’ in battling extremists as a means to decimate minority groups. Countries in Africa occupy most of the top ten spots in these lists.

“You see governments who have faced a genuine threat, but the point is the actions they have taken against the wider civilian population, including minority civilians, have been justified as part of the ‘war on terror.’ It has included disappearances, torture and extrajudicial executions,” according to MRG director Mark Lattimer.

In Somalia, the two-year crackdown on the al Qaeda-linked Shabaab insurgency has managed to wipe out 18,000 civilians. Civilian deaths In Iraq are still said to presently occur, at 300-800 a month during the last year, especially among the Shabak people who have fled from Mosul to Nineveh.

Myanmar, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and the Israel/Palestinian territories rank 5th to 10th in that order.

Regional conflicts that lead to political violence and suppression of dissidents have also cost collateral damage in the decimation of ethnic populations.

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Via Reuters