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The displacement of populations
Displacement is the forced migration of a population or parts of a population out of a region. This can occur through the use of violence or the threat of violence. The settlement of a region by other peoples may contribute to this. However, settlement by other peoples may also occur following a displacement and prevent the previous population from returning.
In most cases, only certain sections of the population belonging to a particular ethnic group or religion are affected by displacement. Displacement is also frequently accompanied by expropriation, whereby other individuals or the state appropriate the land and possessions of those displaced. However, the land, buildings and other possessions that belonged to the displaced people may also become ownerless. This is the case when the displacement took place in order to clear forest or carry out mining in the displaced people’s former settlement area, and the displaced people’s remaining property was of no interest. The appropriation of land is a recurring motivation for the displacement of peoples. Another recurring motivation is the need to ensure the safety of one’s own population when there were regular conflicts with other peoples. Less common are instances of displacement caused, for example, by man-made environmental disasters, such as the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in 1986 in the Soviet Union and the subsequent evacuation of the population living in that region, or the forest fires in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay in 2019, which led to the displacement of the peoples living in the Amazon rainforest.
Examples of displacement throughout history
Following the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt (from 132 to 136), the Jews were expelled from Palestine. The property of those expelled was confiscated by the Roman fiscal procurators for the Roman treasury.
From 1570 to 1611, the Moriscos were expelled from Spain. The Moriscos were Muslims who had converted to Christianity. Between 1609 and 1611, around 275,000 Moriscos were expelled.
In the USA, from around 1800 to around 1830, the Native American tribes of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muskogee and Seminole were driven from the fertile south of the USA to the north-west. The aim was to take over their tribal lands for use as farmland and pasture. This event is also known as the “Trail of Tears” [in Cherokee “ᎨᏥᎧᎲᏓ ᎠᏁᎬᎢ” – “getsikahvda anegvi”].
The Navajo Native Americans were forced to move from the south-west of the USA to the north-east between 1864 and 1866. This forced relocation took place after the Navajo had increasingly raided immigrant settlements in the USA and Mexico. In 1868, the Navajo were permitted to return to their traditional tribal lands under the Treaty of Bosque Redondo, after the costs of guarding and feeding the Navajo had become excessively high and the military representative in charge, William Tecumseh Sherman, was convinced that the traditional tribal lands were too barren for white settlers.
From the end of the 18th century to the end of the 19th century, the Gaelic-speaking population was expelled from the Scottish Highlands in Great Britain. The reason was the aim of displacing smallholders in favour of large-scale sheep farming and hunting grounds. The rent paid by smallholders was lower than the cost of keeping sheep and selling wool on the same land. Wool prices rose with the onset of industrialisation. A large proportion of the Gaelic-speaking population emigrated to North America and to the major cities of England. Several hundred thousand people were displaced. This displacement can be classified as ethnic cleansing.
The expulsion of probably over a million Armenians from Turkey in 1915 is listed under genocide.
In the Second Polish Republic, territories were ceded from Germany to Poland under the Treaty of Versailles following the First World War. By 1939, 1.5 million Germans had been expelled from these territories. Conversely, Poles were also expelled from German territories, particularly in Upper Silesia.
After the Second World War, Poland lost territories in the east to Ukraine and gained territories in the west from Germany. In the process, around 1.8 million Poles were expelled from Ukraine and around 3.8 million Germans were expelled from Poland towards the west.
As a result of the so-called Beneš Decrees, around 3 million Germans were expelled from the Czech Republic and Slovakia after the Second World War.
Following the Vietnam War (1955–1975), a refugee crisis began in which around 3 million people were displaced from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. They fled to various countries in South-East Asia, China, North America, Australia and Europe.
The civil war in El Salvador (1979 to 1992) displaced around 1 million people.
Between 2023 and 2024, 1.9 million people in Gaza were displaced from the north-east to the south-west. This represents around 85% of Gaza’s population. This displacement is classified as an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
Displacements are now prohibited under international law and constitute a crime against humanity. As such, they are listed in Article 7 of the Rome Statute, which came into force in 2002.
