The Anatomy of Genocides: From Silence to Accountability
A blogpost by Dr Emmanuel Achiri, Policy and Advocacy Advisor on Migration, policing
Emmanuel Achiri is ENAR’s expert on migration, security, and policing, focusing on these issues through a racial justice, intersectional, and decolonial lens. . Achiri holds a PhD in international politics and migration. His recent work includes roles with the European Philanthropic Initiative for Migration, Urban-A, and the European Academic Refugee Interdisciplinary Network.
In the final judgement of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in the case Prosecutor v. Akayesu, genocide was described as “the crime of crimes”. However, mass unconscionable murders are not new. For centuries before this, international legal scholars, historians, and and humanitarians had attempted to frame into language the “crime without a name”. In other words, crimes that shock the conscience of mankind or unprecedented atrocities and unmentionable crimes. For instance, historical accounts attempted to describe the unmentionable crimes committed during slavery, the destruction of the Indies by the Spanish, or the crimes committed by the Ottoman empire against the Armenians during World War One. However, the discursive framework to describe these crimes was lacking until the word ‘genocide’ was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish-Polish-born lawyer in the 1940s, combining the Greek word ‘genos’ (race, tribe) and the Latin word ‘cide’ (killing).
In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the first human rights treaty with the commitment to ‘never again’. This treaty, known as the Genocide Convention, defines the Crime of Genocide, as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. These acts include killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, imposing measures to prevent births, and forcibly transferring children. The crime of genocide is unique because it must be committed with the intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.
As Lemkin and others before him had noted, numerous genocides have taken place throughout history, leading to the systematic extermination of communities and cultures. Some of the most well-documented genocides prior to the 21st century include: the extermination of Indigenous communities during the Spanish conquest of the Americas; European colonisation; the enslavement of black Africans; King Leopold II’s reign of terror and mass killings in the Congo; the Namibian genocide committed by German colonial forces against the Herero and Nama peoples; the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire; the Holodomor, a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine; the Holocaust, in which six million Jews and millions of others, including Romani people and Slavic populations, were murdered by Nazi Germany; the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi population; the Cambodian genocide under the Khmer Rouge regime; and the Bosnian genocide, including the massacre of Bosniaks in Srebrenica, amongst others.
The Politics of Recognition
Since the turn of the 21st century, wars, conflicts, and mass exterminations motivated by ethnic, racial and religious discrimination have sparked serious allegations of genocide by both state and non-state actors. These include ISIS’s atrocities against the Yazidi population in Iraq, the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar, systemic repression of the Uyghurs in China, widespread ethnic and sexual violence in Sudan by the Rapid Support Forces, mass killings in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the ongoing Israeli war on Palestinians in Gaza. Despite the definition in the Genocide Convention and the case work of International Tribunals, the classification of what constitutes a genocide is often politically charged. Humanitarian workers and some genocide experts criticize Western governments and global power dynamics as influencing which crimes receive recognition as genocide, thereby impacting international intervention, justice, and accountability, while others argue that the term genocide is used loosely and not all violent and unconscionable crimes have to be referred to as a ‘genocide’.
The case of Gaza typifies this ongoing debate. Following the deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7th, 2023, which led to the death of about 1200 Israelis with an additional 251 taken into captivity in Gaza, the subsequent response by Israeli forces in Gaza has led to about 64,000 Palestinian deaths. This figure may rise to 186000 according to findings in a study published by the Lancet in 2024.
The International Court of Justice on January 26, March 28, and May 24, 2024 effectively ordered through its Provisional Measures that the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza risks irreparable harm to Palestinians to be protected from genocide, for unimpeded access to aid into the Gaza strip, for Israel to allow for UN organs to investigate allegations of genocide, and for the release of all hostages. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity for two senior Israeli officials, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yoav Gallant, the former Minister of Defence of Israel, and three Hamas leaders, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh – withdrawn due to their deaths.
Since then, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have described the war on Gaza as a genocide. Yet, some powerful states and institutions, and some of their closest allies continue to refute the allegations of acts of genocide in Gaza.
But beyond political debates, the victims and affected communities bear the heaviest burden. Their suffering reverberates through generations, leaving deep scars on themselves and on humanity. Throughout history, people have vowed “Never again”. Yet, genocides and unconscionable crimes continue to unfold before our eyes, and future generations are often left to wonder: How did this happen?…Why did no one put an end to this?
Why Antiracist and Human Rights Organisations in Europe Must Speak Out
Racism has historically played a central role in genocide, serving as both a justification and a driving force for mass extermination. The belief in racial superiority, colonial expansion, and ethnic hierarchies has led to the systematic targeting of marginalised communities. From the enslavement and slaughter of Indigenous peoples to the Nazi ideology of Aryan supremacy, racism has consistently underpinned genocidal policies and actions.
Today, antiracist and human rights organisations in Europe have a special responsibility to stand against genocides and war crimes – not only because of moral obligation but because of Europe’s historical role in creating and sustaining systems of violence – atrocities that are deeply tied to the legacies and continuities of European imperialism.
Europe’s colonial projects carved up Africa and the Middle East, imposed violent borders, extracted resources, and entrenched systems of racial hierarchy whose consequences continue to fuel conflict and exploitation today. In the case of Occupied Palestinian Territory including Gaza, where the ICJ had found in July 2024, that Israel was in breach of international laws against racial segregation, it is enabled by longstanding European complicity and arms support, reflecting colonial patterns of racial domination. In Congo, centuries of European plunder – from King Leopold’s genocidal rule to multinational mining interests today – have left a landscape of extreme violence and resource-driven conflict. In Sudan, while the United Arab Emirates is the key actor accused of genocide, it operates within global systems of militarisation and profiteering that Europe helped establish and continues to support through arms sales, diplomatic backing, and extractive economic ties.
If European antiracist movements are serious about dismantling white supremacy and racial capitalism, they must recognise that these atrocities in these regions are not distant tragedies but direct outcomes of Europe’s historical and ongoing imperial entanglements, and act urgently in solidarity with oppressed peoples.
“Never again” must not remain an empty promise. It must be a call to action, here and now.
Why a Racial Justice Lens Matters
A racial justice lens is essential, even – and especially – for organisations based in Europe. European antiracist and human rights groups cannot afford to view atrocities outside their borders as disconnected from their missions. The global systems of racial hierarchy, economic exploitation, and colonial domination that fuel mass atrocities today are the same systems that perpetuate racial injustice within Europe. Solidarity must be global because the structures of oppression are global. By centring a racial justice analysis, we can better understand how current European policies, interests, and histories continue to shape violence abroad – and how dismantling racism at home is inseparable from opposing mass atrocities and colonial violence elsewhere. Without this global consciousness, European movements risk reinforcing the very systems they seek to dismantle.
