Cambodian genocide

1975-04-17 - 1979-01-07

Systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot from 1975 to 1979, resulting in approximately 2 million deaths, around 25% of Cambodia's 1975 population. The regime emptied the cities, forced the population into rural labor camps, and carried out mass executions, forced labor, torture and starvation in pursuit of an ultra-Maoist agrarian socialist republic. The massacres ended when Vietnam invaded in December 1978 and toppled the regime by January 1979; senior Khmer Rouge leaders were later convicted by the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.