ethnic cleansing

/ˌɛθnɪk klɛnzɪŋ/

/ˈɛθnɪk ˈklɛnzɪŋ/

Ethnic cleansing is the deliberate attempt to get rid of people who belong to a specific culture, either by forcing them out of a region or killing them.

When governments engage in ethnic cleansing, their goal is to create a homogeneous country, where nearly everyone belongs to the same culture, religion, and race. The phrase is a translation of the Croatian etnicko ciscenje, which was used in the 1990s to describe attempts to force certain groups out of the former Yugoslavia. Ethnic cleansing resulted in violence against ethnic Serbs and Bosnian Muslims, among other cultural and religious groups.

Definitions of ethnic cleansing

1. noun

   the mass expulsion and killing of one ethnic or religious group in an area by another ethnic or religious group in that area
   type of:

   group action

   action taken by a group of people