ethnically cleanse

English

Verb

ethnically cleanse (third-person singular simple present ethnically cleanses, present participle ethnically cleansing, simple past and past participle ethnically cleansed)

  1. (euphemistic, transitive) To deliberately and systematically remove an ethnic, racial, or religious group from a specific area, typically through violence.
    • 1994, United States, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report, East Europe‎[1], numbers 136-146, page 7:
      This is utterly absurd because the impression arises that the harder someone fights, slaughters, and "ethnically cleanses" the civilian population, the more respectfully his demands must be met.
    • 1999, Howard Ball, Prosecuting War Crimes and Genocide, The Twentieth-century Experience, page 128:
      After the Muslims or Croats capitulated, the special forces, the "dreaded paramilitary groups," entered the town and "ethnically cleansed" it of Croats or Muslims.
    • 2013, Great Britain, Parliament, House of Lords, The Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), House of Lords official report, Volume 745, page 451:
      He is pursuing his racist policy of ethnically cleansing the African peoples from Blue Nile state and the Nuba Mountains in Southern Kordofan.
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