Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people, either in whole or in part.
The Political Instability Task Force estimated that 43 genocides occurred between 1956 and 2016, resulting in about 50 million deaths. The UNHCR estimated that a further 50 million had been displaced by such episodes of violence up to 2008. Genocide is widely considered to be the epitome of human evil. Genocide has been referred to as the "crime of crimes". Incitement to genocide is recognized as a separate crime under international law and an inchoate crime which does not require genocide to have taken place to be prosecutable.
In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.
Etymology
Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, combining the Greek word γένος (genos, "race, people") with the Latin suffix -caedo ("act of killing").