Concentration Camp

Since World War II numerous repressive regimes have established concentration camps. Thus, Communist regimes in Asia have used reeducation camps to detain vast numbers of men, women, and children. In the 1950s the British established emergency detention camps in Kenya; in the 1960s the government of Indonesia placed opponents in island camps; and in the 1970s the military regime in Argentina operated secret detention camps.

The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 created refugees on a vast scale. In an operation that became known as “ethnic cleansing,” Serb military authorities interned thousands of Muslim and Bosnian Croat civilians in detention facilities. There they were subjected to widespread acts of physical and psychological abuse and to inhumane conditions, mainly because of their national, religious, and political identity. Detainees were repeatedly subjected to or forced to witness murder, rape, sexual assault, torture, beatings, and robbery, as well as other forms of mental and physical abuse. See also Wars of Yugoslav Succession.