Where does genocide happen, and where are warning signs already visible? Genocide Watch’s new Ten Stages of Genocide Map provides a global overview of our latest findings. It is a major update to the previous version from October 2025 and includes our latest assessments and reports through the beginning of August 2026. The new map is now available on the Ten Stages page, below the explanations of the individual stages. See where the Ten Stages are occurring Countries and regions are colored according to the highest stage currently identified in our latest analysis. The donut charts show which of the Ten Stages are present. Each segment represents one stage. The more stages identified, the larger the donut. Search globally The map can now be searched by countries, regions, perpetrators, targeted groups, and other terms found in our reports. Search for “Indigenous” or “LGBTQ,” for example, to see where these groups have been identified as targets in our latest assessments. Filter individual stages The Ten Stages can also be filtered directly. Click on a segment in the donut menu on the left, for example Stage 7: Preparation, to see all countries and regions where this stage was identified in the latest available assessment. Filter by alert level You can also filter the map by Genocide Watch’s alert levels: Watch, Warning, and Emergency. This makes it easier to explore situations that may receive less international attention. Conflict fatalities A new layer based on data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) shows where conflict-related deaths have been recorded. The data does not represent the full human cost of a conflict, but it provides an indication of where direct conflict fatalities are concentrated. The layer can be hidden or viewed on its own. Globe or flat map Explore the data on an interactive globe, let the globe rotate automatically, or switch to a flat world map for a global overview. We hope the map encourages people to explore our findings and learn more about atrocities and warning signs around the world. The map is now embedded on Genocide Watch’s Ten Stages of Genocide page, where you can also read more about each of the stages. For questions, corrections, or feedback, please contact maps@genocidewatch.org. Map created by the Genocide Watch Mapping Team / Bela Müller.

Photo by Abid Katib/Getty Images by Karolina Bonde May 2026 Historically civilians’ restricted access to water during warfare has been a form of collateral damage when infrastructure is damaged and water supply chains are disrupted. Recently, restricting water usage has been used as a key method of warfare. By damaging water infrastructure, military combatants gain cumulative tactical leverage while avoiding actual combat. However, international actors have not been able to protect civilians’ access to water during war by applying the relevant and established laws. Thus, the tactic spreads with impunity. Humanitarian groups have extensively documented this pattern in Gaza, especially since the October 7 attacks committed by Hamas and Israel's ensuing military onslaught. Humanitarian groups have documented this pattern extensively in Gaza during the Gaza War. Several other prominent cases show that combatants are ignoring the established laws that protect civilians’ access to water during war. In Gaza, observers have documented clear deprivation of water as a tool against civilians. The violations of law have not been addressed, and this lack of accountability may encourage this violation in future warfare. Already, United States (US) President Donald Trumphas threatened to target Iran’s power plants and desalination infrastructure, despite longstanding protections afforded to civilian infrastructure that is necessary for survival. Indeed, strikes on desalination plants in Iran, Bahrain, and Kuwait have already been reported, first in March and again in July. This report examines the systematic restriction of water in Gaza through the findings of Doctors Without Borders (DWB), presented in its April 2026 report. It also considers how such acts have spread with impunity in warfare elsewhere. Water Deprivation in Gaza For years, DWB has warned about the collapse of water and sanitation conditions in Gaza. Operating directly on the ground, DWB has repeatedly documented how restrictions on infrastructure, fuel, and humanitarian aid have affected the civilian population’s ability to access necessities essential for survival. In April 2026, DWB stated, “Israeli authorities have used access to water as a weapon against Palestinians, systematically depriving people in Gaza, Palestine, of water in a campaign of collective punishment.” Since the start of the war, DWB reports that Israel has destroyed or damaged nearly 90% of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure, including desalinationplants, boreholes, pipelines, and sewage systems. Israel’s use of water deprivation was signaled openly in the immediate aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas on Israeli citizens. Genocide Watch has previously stated that those attacks were acts of genocide, as is the Israeli response. On October 9, 2023, the then-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a "complete siege” of the Gaza Strip and that there would “be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed.”Similar rhetoric followed from Major General Ghassan Alian, head of the Israeli Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), who stated: “There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.” The destruction of water and sanitation systems in Gaza has penetrated every aspect of civilian life, including hygiene, disease prevention, childbirth, food preparation, and psychological survival itself. Families dig makeshift toilets into the sand inside overcrowded tent encampments, often meters away from the boreholes used to access drinking water. During winter flooding, sewage spreads directly into living spaces. Access to soap, detergent, and basic hygiene products has repeatedly been cut off. Mothers have reportedly torn pieces of clothing into improvised diapers for infants. Women and girls struggle for access to menstrual hygiene products, increasing their risk of infection and illness. Some women have resorted to bathing in the sea, despite reports that Israeli forces fire towards civilians who approach the shoreline. Untreated solid and medical waste compounds this collapse. As early as March 2024, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) warned that if the issue of solid waste, including medical waste, was not adequately addressed, it would exacerbate the suffering of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, severely affecting public health given limited access to healthcare, and contaminating agricultural land and the aquifer as pollutants seep into the soil. Children’s daily existence is shaped by the crisis. Many wake each morning not knowing whether water trucks will arrive. While waiting in line for water, a ten-year-old boy in Nuseirat was reportedly shot and killed in July 2025.His grandmother later stated, “Getting water is not supposed to be dangerous.” DWB's mental health professionals have documented suicidal ideation linked directly to the collapse of water and sanitation conditions. Therefore, deprivation of water to Gazans is not only a humanitarian issue. Restricting access to water and sanitation is one form of systematic destruction of the conditions necessary for their life, health, and human dignity. The Mechanisms of Deprivation of Water In the Gaza War, Israeli authorities have used three interrelated systems to deprive Gazan civilians of access to water: Direct destruction: The Israeli authorities have destroyed or damaged 89% of water and sanitation infrastructure in Gaza. The northern desalination plant has been demolished entirely. Damaged infrastructure includesover 60% of its 196 publicly- and NGO-run desalination plants. This has stripped Gaza of the physical capacity to produce clean water at scale. Access denial: On July 30, 2025, 87% of Gaza's territory was under Israeli evacuation order or military control, cutting residents off from wells, water points, and repair sites within these zones. As of March 2026, 58% of Gaza remains inaccessible, leaving much of the population unable to reach functioning water infrastructure even where it exists. This control extends to humanitarian delivery: in September 2025, during Israeli forces' incursion into Gaza City, Israeli authorities denied 100% of DWB's 27 requests for water trucking movements, blocking emergency water supply to areas cut off by military control. Supply blockage: Since January 1, 2026, every single DWB request to bring supplies through the Israeli-controlled approval system has been denied. Israel classifies water desalination pumps, water testing kits, RO membranes, chlorine tablets and even latrine units as requiring complex military approval; in any other context, those items would be considered basic humanitarian supplies. In November 2025, six large reverse osmosis units, each capable of producing 10,000 liters of drinking water per hour, were turned away at the Kerem Shalom crossing. Initially approved, then rejected in November, they were rejected again in December following US military intervention. As of March 2026, they have still not entered Gaza. Meanwhile, 2,150 latrine units have been sitting in a warehouse in Jordan since April 2025. In addition to targeting equipment and supplies, Israeli military attacks have targeted the people who try to provide or access them. In July 2025, seven children were killed in central Gaza while waiting for water at a distribution point. More recently, UNICEF announced its outrage after Israeli forces killed two drivers it had contracted to deliver clean water to families in northern Gaza. The same attack wounded two others and occurred during routine water trucking at the Mansoura filling point. UNICEF suspended operations at the site. Thus, water infrastructure is not simply caught in the crossfire of war, subject to collateral damage. Rather, water is being denied at every link in the chain, from demolished plants to blocked supplies and fatal attacks on the people physically carrying water. Independent experts appointed by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), have expressed despair for the situation, stating, “Israel is using thirst as a weapon to kill Palestinians. Cutting off water and food is a silent but lethal bomb that kills mostly children and babies. The sight of infants dying in their mothers’ arms is unbearable. How can world leaders sleep while this suffering continues?” The Legal Framework: Clear Prohibitions, Limited Enforcement For decades, international humanitarian law has addressed the weaponization of water. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) identifies four core prohibitions directly applicable to water in armed conflict: the ban on poisoning or rendering water unfit for use the ban on destroying objects indispensable to civilian survival the ban on attacking works containing dangerous forces such as dams, and the ban on destroying enemy property. Drinking water installations and supplies are explicitly named within these protections, and starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited, regardless of the nature of the conflict. Even if a water installation is targeted because it is used solely by armed forces for military action, adversaries must refrain from any action that would deprive civilians of essential water. In the current war, Israel has breached each of these four prohibitions through direct attack and blocking humanitarian aid, supplies, and equipment. As occupying power, Israel's obligations go further. The Berlin Rules on Water Resources, grounded in the Fourth Geneva Convention Article 55, state that the obligation to protect water installations and ensure adequate supply to an occupied population is absolute. Israel is not merely prohibited from destroying Gaza's water infrastructure: it is legally required to maintain it. Also, under the Rome Statute, intentionally using starvation as a method of warfare, including by depriving civilians of water, is a war crime and may constitute the crime against humanity of extermination or an act of genocide. In November, 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issuedarrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Minister Gallant on precisely this charge. In the Geneva Conventions, the underlying prohibition on starvation as a method of warfare is established in Additional Protocol I. Israel is not a party to Additional Protocol I, so it disputes that the prohibition is legally bindingon it. This argument does not hold, as the prohibition on starvation is also part of customary international law, which binds all states, regardless of which treaties they have ratified. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) was equally unambiguous. In its January 2024 order, the court found a "real and imminent risk of irreparable harm arising from the deprivation of potable water" in Gaza and issued binding measures requiring Israel to restore humanitarian access. Israel has not complied with that order, nor with the three that followed. Israel's position implicitly echoes the argument of legal scholar Yoram Dinstein, who has called the prohibition "unjustifiable and utopian" on the grounds that siege warfare has historically been lawful. But even a siege has legal limits. According to the ICRC, a siege aimed at starving civilians is prohibited, and any starvation effects directed at enemy forces must be exclusively confined to them. A party cannot use military purposes as cover for depriving civilians of what they need to survive. Israel’s deprivation of access to water and sanitation that the DWB report documents in the Gaza War goes far beyond those limits. Impunity, Resistance, and Failure of Enforcement Regarding Israel’s deprivation of water to civilians in Gaza, the law has spoken repeatedly, through ICC arrest warrants, ICJ provisional measures, and extensive documentation by humanitarian and human rights organizations. The response, however, has increasingly been to undermine and dismantle the institutions doing the speaking. Following President Trump's return to office as the US President in January 2025, the US sanctioned the ICC prosecutor, deputies who lead the Office of the Prosecutor, and four judges including two on the pre-trial chamber that issued the warrants regarding Prime Minister Netanyahu and then-Minister Gallant. The ICJ orders have been ignored in their entirety. The October 2025 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas explicitly promised "full aid" and "rehabilitation of infrastructure including water, electricity and sewage, without interference from the two parties." However, since that agreement took effect, 13 types of water, sanitation and hygiene items submitted by DWB have been rejected for importation to Gaza. These items include chlorine tablets, antiscalant essential for running desalination systems, and water pipes for a hospital. Acts like these underscore the urgency of addressing the prevailing impunity. A Pattern of Water Deprivation in the West Bank and Gaza The events unfolding in Gaza reflect a longer history of Israeli control over Palestinian water resources. In November 1967, Military Order 158 was issued after Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. It stated that Palestinians could not construct any new water installation without first obtaining a permit from the Israeli army. However, those permits proved almost impossible to obtain. What followed was a structural and sustained disparity in access to water. Israelis, including settlers in the West Bank, use an average of 247 liters of water per day per person, or three times the 82 liters available to Palestinians in the West Bank. In Palestinian communities not connected to the water grid, daily consumption is only 26 liters per person, a level comparable to disaster zones. The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem concludes that the crisis of water access facing Palestinians is the direct result of a deliberate Israeli policy that treats water as a tool of control over the Palestinian population. It explains that Israel justifies this policy by citing the arrangements laid out in the Interim Agreement it signed with the PLO in 1995. But that agreement was only ever intended to hold for five years, and the West Bank today looks nothing like it did when it was signed. Since then, the Palestinian population has nearly doubled, yet Israel has never adjusted the ceiling on how much water Palestinians are allowed to draw. The gap forces the Palestinian Authority to buy water back from Israel's state-owned supplier, Mekorot, at a steep premium over its actual cost. Gaza has long struggled with contaminated water. Even before October 2023, 90-95% of its water supply was contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Gaza's only freshwater source, the Coastal Aquifer, had been progressively depleted and contaminated by sewage and seawater infiltration. Israel restricted the entry into Gaza of materials and equipment necessary for the development and repair of infrastructure, contributing further to a marked deterioration in the water and sanitation situation. In addition, Israel did not allow water transfers from the West Bank to Gaza. Israel damaged and destroyed water infrastructure in Gaza during its multiple military operations there. Amnesty International documented such damage done between 2002 and 2009. In just eight months ending in March 2003, the Israeli army destroyed 102 wells in Gaza, forcing residents to use unsafe water sources such as agricultural wells. In a single invasion in Rafah in early 2003, Israeli forces demolished two public wells providing drinking water to half of the town's 120,000 residents. In a subsequent May 2004 raid in Rafah, UN aid agencies reported that damage to water and sewage networks caused an immediate public health collapse in which over 1,300 children were brought to a single clinic in ten days, suffering from diarrhea and skin diseases. In the winter of 2008-09, Israel’s Operation Cast Lead caused approximately $6 million worth of damage to water infrastructure, including the damage or destruction of four reservoirs, eleven wells, and 20,000 meters of water mains. Taken together, these incidents illustrate Israel’s systemic pattern of attacking water infrastructure as a means of warfare in Gaza. Beyond Gaza In Gaza, the world is witnessing the systematic deprivation of a resource indispensable to civilian survival, carried out as a method of warfare, documented exhaustively, and met with impunity, despite clear legal prohibitions. But Israel’s deprivation of water in Gaza is not an isolated case, but the most extensively-documented instance of this tactic. This crisis in Gaza thus represents a test of whether the protections underpinning civilian survival in armed conflict retain any practical meaning. For example, in Ukraine in 2023, the dam at the Kakhovska Hydroelectric Power Plant was destroyed by Russian forces with catastrophic consequences, including the disruption of drinking water and sanitation services for one million people. In Yemen in 2023, both Houthi forces and Saudi-backed government forces have weaponized water infrastructure in Taizz: Houthis have shut off supply valves and blocked water trucks, while government forces have diverted water resources to fund military operations. In Sudan in 2025, the deliberate seizure of water resources has worsened famine and triggered mass displacement, creating one of the world's largest humanitarian crises for 30 million people. The logic in each case is the same. Attacks on water infrastructure offer military, political, and psychological leverage without requiring direct combat. The tactic is deniable, cumulative, and effective. In April 2026, that logic was stated openly at the highest level. US President Trump threatened "complete demolition" of Iran's power plants, including water desalination plants, unless Iran reopened the Strait of Hormuz. Amnesty International's Secretary General responded that intentionally attacking civilian infrastructure constitutes war crimes under international law. Tehran responded that it would "irreversibly destroy" essential infrastructure across the Middle East, including vital water systems, if the US followed through. In regions such as the Gulf, where desalination plants supply the vast majority of drinking water, such an exchange would be immediately catastrophic. In July 2026, the US and Iran each struck desalination plants, disrupting water supply for thousands of civilians; such strikes were also reported in March. The Ten Stages of Genocide As identified in prior analysis, Genocide Watch recognizes Palestine as experiencing all Ten Stages of Genocide. In addition, the engineering of water scarcity through infrastructure destruction, supply blockades, and displacement orders reflects the preparatory logic of Stage 7: Preparation, in which conditions are deliberately constructed to make survival impossible for the targeted group before extermination accelerates. These acts also amount to Stage 8: Persecution, as the group is deliberately deprived of a resource essential to life in order to slowly destroy it, and to Stage 9: Extermination, as the resulting deprivation directly drives mass death within the population. Genocide Watch recommends that: Israel must immediately allow unimpeded entry of all water and sanitation supplies and equipment. Israel must restore humanitarian access across the full Gaza Strip and end displacement orders that cut people off from water sources. Israel must comply fully with all four ICJ provisional measures of orders. All states must apply the same legal standards to attacks on civilian water infrastructure, regardless of which party commits them.

Peace and closure among family's feelings as girls who died at residential school come home Natalie Pressman July 23, 2026 Alice and Rosanna Drygeese will be buried in Yellowknife, N.W.T., next to their father Mary Jane Drygeese and her great-granddaughter. Drygeese's two sisters are coming home to Yellowknife decades after they died at residential school in Fort Resolution. (Submitted by Berna Ross) In some of his final words, Berna Ross’s grandfather spoke of how nice it would be to reunite with his two daughters in heaven. It’s been decades since he’d seen his daughters Alice and Rosanna Drygeese, Ross’s aunties, who went away to residential school in Fort Resolution and never came home. Ross’s mother, Mary Jane, is Alice and Rosanna’s sister. They were 14 and 6 years old when they died of tuberculosis. “They were supposed to come home for Christmas,” Ross said, recalling her mother’s story. “She was never given a full explanation.” Soon, Alice and Rosanna will be buried next to their father in Yellowknife. “Just knowing that they're going to be close to their dad, it just gives me joy and peace, closure as well,” Ross said. Deninu Kųę́ First Nation has been working to map the graves of those who died at residential school in Fort Resolution and identify unmarked graves while connecting family with their missing loved ones. So far, they've identified the names of 70 children who never made it home from St. Joseph's Mission School in Fort Resolution. It’s a process that takes years of work, ground penetrating radar, DNA testing and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Thanks to that work, the remains of Alma Beaulieu were brought home to Fort Smith in October and Alice Abel and Denise Boucher to Łútselk'e last week. Berna Ross, left, and her mother Mary Jane Drygeese. Ross says she feels joy, peace and closure to have her aunts, her mother's sisters, returning home to Yellowknife. (Submitted by Berna Ross) Linda Vanden Berg, an anthropologist working with the First Nation, said the work is intensive but everyone involved is dedicated. “We're trying to repatriate as many children as possible because when the elders contact us, they aren't young and they want to bring these children home to be buried beside their relatives,” she said. Deninu Kųę́ is leading the country in repatriating remains of children who died in residential schools, she said, and that has a lot to do with the Jon Hansen, the bishop of the Mackenzie-Fort Smith diocese, allowing access to historical church records. “Without the burial records, it would have been nigh on impossible to achieve this. And I don't think that access is there for the rest of the country,” she said. Vanden Berg said their team has also been able to make strides because the residential school in Fort Resolution was relatively small compared to others in the country so they can go through the documents more quickly. Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) funds this work through a Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund. That supports research to help communities gather local knowledge, find burial sites and honour the children with grave markers, monuments or commemorative events. ‘All of the what ifs’ The Northwest Territories previously prevented families from bringing home remains of their loved ones because of legislation that considered ancestral remains to be artifacts. Last year, the government of the Northwest Territories established a process to get around that. The chief public health officer could authorize families to exhume the children, or families could go through the courts for permission. At least five children have been brought home to their communities and Vanden Berg said several more are forthcoming. Ross also has another aunt she hopes they can bring home. She says they think she may have been moved to Fort Providence or the Fort Smith hospital. “It still hurts, you know, that we’ve had aunties that we could have known and cousins that we could have had,” Ross said. “It was just all of the what ifs.” Ross said she feels compassion for all the families working to bring their loved ones home. “What they’re going through is not easy.” But she hopes they can be encouraged to see it through. “Just be hopeful,” she said. “Be hopeful and that hopefully they can get their loved ones back.” ©2026 CBC/Radio-Canada.

The Ten Stages of Genocide by Founder and President, Dr. Gregory Stanton: Classification, Symbolization, Discrimination, Dehumanization, Organization, more... The Ten Stages of Genocide By Dr. Gregory H. Stanton President, Genocide Watch Copyright 1996 I. Classification ii. Symbolization iii. Discrimination iv. Dehumanization v. Organization vi. Polarization vii. Preparation viii. Persecution ix. Extermination x. Denial I. Classification II. Symbolization Denial photo I. Classification 1/12 Genocide is a process that develops in ten stages that are predictable but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it. The process is not linear. Stages occur simultaneously. Each stage is itself a process . Their logic is similar to a nested Russian matryoshka doll. Classification is at the center. Without it the processes around it could not occur. As societies develop more and more genocidal processes, they get nearer to genocide. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process. I. CLASSIFICATION II. SYMBOLIZATION III. DISCRIMINATION IV. DEHUMANIZATION V. ORGANIZATION VI. POLARIZATION VII. PREPARATION VIII. PERSECUTION IX. EXTERMINATION X. DENIAL TEN STAGES WORLD MAP Download the dataset (csv with polygons) here Last updated: August 2026 EXPLANATION OF THE TEN STAGES OF GENOCIDE MAP This map shows countries monitored by Genocide Watch. Shading = Highest Occurring Stage The colored outlines of the states and regions indicate the highest stage currently observed, based on our latest analysis. Which might need an update in some cases. These stages help highlight where genocide is emerging, escalating, or already occurring. Donut charts = Ten Stages of Genocide The colored donut charts show which of the Ten Stages of Genocide are currently observed in each country. Each segment represents one stage. Further Information: 1. Click on a country to see the latest report, involved actors, and a summary of the observed stages. 2. National borders are based on Natural Earth data, which uses a de facto mapping approach. The borders do not reflect any official judgment by Genocide Watch. 3. Some of the linked reports may be outdated. Latest update: August 2026. Consult the country profile, as new reports may have been published since then. Map created by the Genocide Watch Mapping Team (maps@genocidewatch.org / Bela Müller ). Ten Stages Map The Logic of the Ten Stages of Genocide By Dr. Gregory Stanton Founding President, Genocide Watch In my studies of genocide, I discovered that the process of every genocide has predictable "stages" or processes. After studying the history of the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the Cambodian Genocide, and other genocides, in 1987 I developed a model known as the Ten Stages of Genocide. I regret using the term "stages" because the word "stages" implies linearity. The processes of genocide aren’t linear because they usually operate simultaneously. I should have simply called the "stages" processes. But there is a logical order to them. The processes are logically related to each other. Discrimination cannot occur without Classification, for example. The relationship between the processes is like the figures in a Russian Matryoshka "nesting doll" in which an original leader's figure is at the center, and later leaders' figures nest outwards until we reach the figure of the current leader on the outside. The processes are also like the rods that are inserted into a nuclear reactor. As they are pushed in deeper along with other rods, a nuclear reaction results. This theory of fundamental processes is based on the structuralist theories of Jean Piaget. By observing the development of his own and other children, Piaget noted fundamental cognitive and moral processes that are transformed in a predictable order in each child's development. Piaget showed how cognitive processes are directly related to moral processes. At Harvard I studied the work of Lawrence Kohlberg, a follower of Piaget's theories who used moral dilemmas to reveal the fundamental processes of moral reasoning. His work has proved powerful in analyzing people's explanations for their decisions. I also studied with Prof. James Fowler, who showed how Piaget's cognitive stages inform stages of faith. Anthropologists look for the fundamental structures in human societies and cultures. When I studied anthropology at Chicago, I saw that socio-cultural processes are also structured. Van Gennep showed that the structure of rites of passage is similar in many cultures. Marcel Mauss did the same for sacrifice. Professor Victor Turner taught me that rituals and symbols are keys to understanding social, political, psychological, and religious structures. These rituals often use the same symbols in many cultures- fire, water, blood, crosses, meals. I wrote my master’s thesis on the movie, "The Graduate." In it I showed that the film uses the structure and symbols discovered by Van Gennep for rites of passage. I wrote a grammar for the film using Noam Chomsky's theories of transformational grammars. When I began my work in genocide studies in Cambodia, I realized there are also fundamental operations - processes - that occur in genocides. I looked for transformational processes that re-order and change societies. I first identified the "stages of genocide" in 1987 by comparing the Cambodian genocide with the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide. I looked for fundamental processes that led to those genocides. They are the socio-cultural processes that interact to transform a society into one that developed into genocide. In 1994, the same processes drove the Rwandan Genocide. Many people now know "The Ten Stages of Genocide" model I developed. I never expected it to be so widely used. But the Ten Stages were not brought down from Mount Sinai on a stone tablet. When I first wrote the model, it had eight stages. Colleagues suggested two more, which I added in 2012. There are undoubtedly other processes that I haven't thought of. It's only a model. The model has proven useful to look for these processes because they help us see when genocide is coming and what governments can do to prevent it. For those unfamiliar with the model, here it is, briefly: [Note that most of the names for the processes end in "-ation", the English ending for words describing processes.] → The first process is Classification, when we classify the world into us versus them. → The second is Symbolization, when we give names to those classifications like Jew and Aryan, Hutu and Tutsi, Turk and Armenian, Bengali and Pashtun. Sometimes the symbols are physical, like the Nazi yellow star. → The third is Discrimination, when laws and customs prevent groups of people from exercising their full rights as citizens or as human beings. → The fourth is Dehumanization, when perpetrators call their victims rats, or cockroaches, cancer, or disease. Portraying them as non-human makes eliminating them a “cleansing” of the society, rather than murder. These first four processes taken together result in what James Waller calls "Othering." → The fifth process is Organization, when hate groups, armies, and militias organize. → The sixth is Polarization, when moderates are targeted who could stop the process of division, especially moderates from the perpetrators’ group. → The seventh process is Preparation, when plans for killing and deportation are made by leaders, and perpetrators are trained and armed. →The eighth process is Persecution, when victims are identified, arrested, transported, and concentrated into prisons, ghettos, or concentration camps, where they are tortured and murdered. → The ninth process is Extermination, what lawyers define as genocide, the intentional destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. When I outlined “the stages of genocide" in a memo I wrote in the State Department in 1996, I realized there is another process in every genocide: → Denial. Denial is a continuation of a genocide, because it is a continuing attempt to destroy the victim group psychologically and culturally, to deny its members even the memory of the murders of their relatives. This processual model demonstrates that there is a logic to the genocidal process, though the relationships between the processes are not linear. The "stages" are processes that occur simultaneously. By helping us understand the logic of genocide, people can see the early warning signs of genocide and know when it is coming. Leaders can design policies to counteract the forces that drive each of the stages. This stage model of the genocidal process was first set forth in 1987 in the Faulds Lecture at Warren Wilson College, "Blue Scarves and Yellow Stars: Classification and Symbolization in the Cambodian Genocide." The model was presented as a briefing paper, “The Eight Stages of Genocide” at the US State Department in 1996. Discrimination and Persecution have been added to the 1996 model. I am grateful to many people for improvements in my original eight stage model, especially to Prof. Alan Whitehorn of the Royal Military College of Canada, and Prof. Elisa von Jöeden-Forgey for noting the gendered aspects of genocides. No model is ever perfect. All are merely ideal-typical representations of reality that are meant to help us think more clearly about social and cultural processes. It is important not to confuse any stage with a status. Each stage is a process. It is like a fluctuating point on a thermometer that rises and falls as the social temperature in a potential area of conflict rises and falls. It is crucial not to confuse this model with a linear one. In all genocides, many stages occur simultaneously. The purpose of this model is to place the risk factors in Barbara Harff’s pioneering analysis of country risks of genocide and politicide into a processual structure. Risks of political instability are characteristic of what Kuper called “divided societies,” with deep rifts in Classification. Targeted groups of state-led discrimination are victims of Discrimination. An exclusionary ideology is central to Discrimination and Dehumanization. Autocratic regimes foster the Organization of hate groups. An ethnically polarized elite is characteristic of Polarization. Lack of openness to trade and other influences from outside a state’s borders is characteristic of Preparation for genocide or politicide. Massive violation of human rights is evidence of Persecution. Impunity after previous genocides or politicides is evidence of Denial. Statistical risk models that are used to predict genocide are different from this model because they use abstract variables constructed with indicators that can be counted or estimated. They are accurate only if the variables used are correlated with likelihood of genocide. The best risk models are those constructed by the Minority Rights Group and the Australian Targeted Mass Killing Data Set for the Study and Forecasting of Mass Atrocities. They result in annual ranked estimates of the probability of genocide in countries studied. The Ten Stages of Genocide model is event driven and continuous. It does not produce statistical rankings. It only estimates whether countries should be subjects of Genocide Watches, Warnings, or Emergencies. The model describes the processes that could lead to genocide in a country and actions that should be taken to oppose and slow those processes. It goes beyond annual statistical risk estimates to describe events that signal warnings of genocidal processes. It is a model to guide policy makers to take actions to prevent and stop genocide. It has been successfully applied by policy makers to prevent or stop genocides in Mozambique, East Timor, Kosovo, Macedonia, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, Burundi, Ethiopia, and Kenya. However, when national or world leaders lack the political will to prevent genocide, thousands of people still die. Ultimately the best antidote to genocide is popular education and the development of social and cultural tolerance for diversity. That is why Genocide Watch and the Alliance Against Genocide hope to educate people around the world to resist genocidal forces whenever they see them. We strongly favor nonviolent resistance to tyranny. We strongly favor the liberation of women. We oppose all war. Finally the movement that will end genocide must come not from international armed interventions, but rather from popular resistance to every form of discrimination; dehumanization, hate speech, and formation of hate groups; rise of political parties that preach hatred, racism or xenophobia; rule by polarizing elites that advocate exclusionary ideologies; police states that massively violate human rights; closure of borders to international trade or communications; and denial of past genocides or crimes against humanity against victim groups. The movement that will end genocide in this century must arise from each of us who have the courage to challenge discrimination, hatred, and tyranny. We must never let the wreckage of humanity's barbaric past keep us from envisioning a peaceful future when law and democratic freedom will rule the earth. For those who doubt there is any direction in history, our common humanity is enough to give meaning to our cause. To those of us who know that history is not some directionless accident, this is our calling and our destiny. As John F. Kennedy said, “On earth, God’s work must truly be our own.” © 2023 Gregory H. Stanton Educational Resources Handout Powerpoint Prezi Stages Toolkit Translations Podcast 10 Etapas del Genocidio en Español जनसंहार के दस चरण Ցեղասպանության 10 փուլերն Dix étapes du génocide Hazırlanan Soykırımın On Aşaması I Dieci Stadi del Genocidio ដំណាក់កាលទាំងដប់ៃនបទឧ្រកិដ្ឋ្របល័យពូជសាសន៍ De tien fases van Genocide Cele 10 Etape ale Genocidului Die Zehn Phasen des Völkermordes نسل کشی کے ۱۰ مراحل

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Fatality Maps Gaza - high resolution Map by Bela Müller - hi res Read More Gaza - low resolution Map by Bela Müller Read More Nigeria and Sahel - high resolution Map by Bela Müller - hi res Read More Nigeria and Sahel - low res Map by Bela Müller Read More Sudan - high resolution Map by Bela Müller - hi res Read More Sudan - low resolution Map by Bela Müller Read More Ukraine - low resolution Map by Bela Müller Read More Ukraine - high resolution Map by Bela Müller - hi res Read More