How many people died in cambodian genocide

Hundreds of thousands of the educated middle-classes were tortured and executed in special centres. The most notorious of these centres was the S jail in Phnom Penh, Tuol Sleng, where as many as 17, men, women and children were imprisoned during the regime's four years in power. Hundreds of thousands of others died from disease, starvation or exhaustion as members of the Khmer Rouge - often just teenagers themselves - forced people to do back-breaking work.

The Khmer Rouge government was finally overthrown in by invading Vietnamese troops, after a series of violent border confrontations. The higher echelons of the party retreated to remote areas of the country, where they remained active for a while but gradually became less and less powerful. In the years that followed, as Cambodia began the process of reopening to the international community, the full horrors of the regime became apparent.

Survivors told their stories to shocked audiences, and in the s the Hollywood movie The Killing Fields brought the plight of the Khmer Rouge victims to worldwide attention. Pol Pot was denounced by his former comrades in a show trial in July , and sentenced to house arrest in his jungle home. But less than a year later he was dead - denying the millions of people who were affected by this brutal regime the chance to bring him to justice. The UN helped establish a tribunal to try surviving Khmer Rouge leaders, beginning work in In addition, estimating the total number of people who starved is difficult.

Estimates range from 1. He was born Saloth Sar to farmers in rural Cambodia in Pol Pot was a bright student and spent time studying in France, where he became involved with communist groups in the early s. After returning home in , Pol Pot joined clandestine groups in Cambodia.

It was during this time that he began combining Stalinist and Maoist models with a returned focus on an agrarian society. With support from rural Cambodians, North Vietnamese, and Chinese, Pol Pot was ultimately able to take control of the country in Although he would be overthrown four years later by an invading Vietnamese army, Pol Pot avoided capture.

He maintained some level of power for nearly two decades. However, Pol Pot would die in , before the trials took place. Although tried in absentia, he was never punished for his crimes and remained unrepentant until the end. The Cambodian Genocide represents a complicated time in history. In the early s, US diplomats raised concerns about the potential for mass atrocities in Cambodia. Comparison between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were made.

The level of support the Khmer Rouge received from fellow communist states North Vietnam and China also meant there were concerns over the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. In , the Khmer Rouge aimed outwards with the goal of creating a new Angkorian empire. The vast majority of those forced into the countryside were made to work as agricultural slave labourers in a federation of collective farms. Working days were long and food rations meagre.

Lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists and qualified professionals in any field were murdered, along with their extended families. Victims of the Khmer Rouge could be shot for knowing a foreign language, wearing glasses, laughing, crying or expressing love for another person. Minority ethnic groups were victims of the Khmer Rouge. Religious believers were sought out and half the Cham Muslim population was murdered alongside 8, Christians. By there were barely any functioning Buddhist monasteries left in Cambodia.

Pol Pot had sought to extend his influence into the newly unified Vietnam, but his forces were quickly rebuffed. After the invasion, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge fighters quickly retreated to remote areas of the country.

However, they remained active as an insurgency, albeit with declining influence. Vietnam retained control in the country, with a military presence, for much of the s, over the objections of the United States. Over the decades since the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia has gradually reestablished ties with the world community, although the country still faces problems, including widespread poverty and illiteracy.

Prince Norodom returned to govern Cambodia in , although he now rules under a constitutional monarchy. Pol Pot himself lived in the rural northeast of the country until , when he was tried by the Khmer Rouge for his crimes against the state. The trial was seen as being mostly for show, however, and the former dictator died while under house arrest in jungle home.

The stories of the suffering of the Cambodian people at the hands of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge have garnered worldwide attention in the years since their rise and fall, including through a fictional account of the atrocities in the movie The Killing Fields.

BBC News. The Cambodian Genocide. United to End Genocide. Cambodian Genocide. World Without Genocide. Mount Holyoke College.