This year marks the grim 20th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, the 100-days killing spree in which Hutu militants tried to eradicate the country's Tutsi population. Despite the promise of the international community to never let such horror take place again, several communities around the world are currently facing violence and mass persecution.
In a new report released on Tuesday, the British non-profit Minority Rights Group warns that in several states, the risk of extreme ethnic or sectarian violence remains high.
The annual Peoples Under Threat Survey identifies those peoples or groups around the world that are most under threat of genocide, mass killing or other forms of systematic violent repression. The survey evaluates six factors that genocide expert Barbara Harff identifies as key indicators of a risk for minorities -- political upheaval, previous genocides, exclusionary ideology of the ruling elite, autocratic nature of the regime, minority character of the ruling elite, and low trade openness.
Since the survey began in 2005, four countries have consistently topped the ranking: Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq. This year, several countries rose up the list as their risk of atrocities increased, including Egypt, Central African Republic, Guinea Bissau and Mali.
Ukraine was included in the list for the first time in 2014. The protests that unseated President Viktor Yanukovych in February included some ethnic nationalists, troubling Ukraine's ethnic Russians, Hungarians and Romanians, Minority Rights Group notes. Russia's subsequent annexation of Crimea raised concerns about the Tatar population, who had been forced out of the peninsula under the Soviet regime. Pro-Russian violence in eastern Ukraine is further heightening threat levels, the report concludes.
Here are Minority Right Group's top ten countries at risk of future mass atrocities, including the communities most under threat in each nation.
Women waiting for food aid at a distribution centre in Afgoye, Somalia, August 2013. (UN Photo/Tobin Jones)
Sudanese shelter in refugee camps in Darfur's south Um Gunya and Hajeer area, Sudan, March 9, 2014. (Albert Gonzalez Farran-UNAMID/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
A Syrian girl from Aleppo looks out the window of an abandoned building where her and several families took refuge during fighting in Qamishli, Syria, Feb. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)
IDP camp at Kiwandja, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 2009. (Photo: MRG)
Hazara laborers wait for customers at a market in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
Lalish, Headquarter of the Yezidi religion, Iraq, June 2011. (Photo: MRG)
Pastor Gill and his church, Islamabad, December 2012. (Photo: MRG)
Emergency food, drinking water and shelter to help people displaced in Rakhine State, western Burma, December 2012. (Photo: DFID Burma)
Somali women queue for relief food at an IDP camp in Dollow, northern Somalia, July 18, 2012. (TONY KARUMBA/AFP/GettyImages)
A Zaydi Shiite man reads the Quran in the grand Mosque in the old city of Sanaa, Yemen, June 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)
This post has been updated to replace an image of South Sudan.
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