Editing Population transfer (section)

==In Asia==
===Ottoman Empire===
{{Further|Population transfer in the Ottoman Empire|Balkan Wars}}
The Ottoman Empire colonized newly conquered territories by deportation (''sürgün'') and resettlement, often to populate empty lands and establish settlements in logistically useful places. The term ''sürgün'' is known to us from Ottoman documents and comes from the verb ''sürmek'' (to displace).<ref name=population>{{cite book |last1=Alam |first1=Gajanafar |title=Population and Society |date=15 September 2021 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0gVDEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA13 |page=13}}</ref> This type of resettlement primarily aimed to support daily governance of the Empire, but sometimes population transfers had ethnic or political concerns.<ref name=de>{{cite journal |doi=10.4000/ejts.4396|doi-access=free|title=Forced Population Movements in the Ottoman Empire and the Early Turkish Republic: An Attempt at Reassessment through Demographic Engineering |year=2013 |last1=Şeker |first1=Nesim |journal=European Journal of Turkish Studies |issue=16 }}</ref>

During [[Mehmet I]]'s reign [[Tatars|Tatar]] and [[Turkoman (ethnonym)|Turkmen]] subjects were moved to the Balkans to secure areas along the border with Christian Europe. Conquered Christians were moved to Anatolia and Thrace. These population transfers continued into the reigns of [[Murad II]] and [[Mehmet II]].<ref name=population/>

After [[Siege of Thessalonica (1422–1430)|Murad II's conquest of Salonika]], Muslims were involuntarily relocated to [[Salonika]], mostly from Anatolia and [[Yenice-i Vardar]].<ref name=population/>

[[Mehmed the Conqueror]] resettled not only Muslims, but Christians and Jews as well, in his efforts to repopulate the city of [[Constantinople]] after its [[fall of Constantinople|conquest in 1453]].<ref name=population/>

According to the deportation decree issued in newly conquered Cyprus on 24 September 1572, one family out of every ten in the provinces of Anatolia, Rum (Sivas), Karaman and Zülkadriye were to be sent to Cyprus. These deportees were craftsmen or peasants. In exchange for relocating they would be exempt from taxes for two years.<ref name=de/>

From [[Bayezid II]] (d. 1512), the empire had difficulty with the heterodox [[Qizilbash]] movement in eastern Anatolia. The forced relocation of the Qizilbash continued until at least the end of the 16th century. [[Selim I]] (d. 1520) ordered merchants, artisans, and scholars transported to Constantinople from [[Tabriz]] and [[Cairo]]. The state mandated Muslim immigration to [[Rhodes]] and [[Cyprus]] after their conquests in 1522 and 1571, respectively, and resettled [[Greek Cypriots]] onto [[Anatolia]]'s coast.

Knowledge among Western historians about the use of ''sürgün'' from the 17th through the 19th century is somewhat unreliable. It appears that the state did not use forced population transfers as much as during its expansionist period.<ref>[http://www.unm.edu/~phooper/thesis_condensed.pdf P. Hooper, Thesis] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081029102418/http://www.unm.edu/~phooper/thesis_condensed.pdf |date=2008-10-29 }}, University of New Mexico</ref>

After the exchanges in the [[Balkans]], the Great Powers and then the [[League of Nations]] used forced population transfer as a mechanism for homogeneity in the post-Ottoman [[Balkans]] to decrease conflict. The Norwegian diplomat [[Fridtjof Nansen]], working with the [[League of Nations]] as a [[United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees|High Commissioner for Refugees]] in 1919, proposed the idea of a forced population transfer. That was modelled on the earlier Greek-Bulgarian mandatory population transfer of [[Greeks]] in Bulgaria to Greece and of [[Bulgarians]] in Greece to Bulgaria.

===Palestine===
{{See also|Nakba|1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight|Causes of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight|1949–1956 Palestinian expulsions|Naksa|Gaza Strip evacuations}}
The [[1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight]], also known as "the [[Nakba]]", was the ethnic cleansing of around 750,000 Palestinian Arabs during the [[1948 Palestine war]] from the part of [[Mandatory Palestine]] that became Israel. The bulk of the Palestinian refugees ended up in the [[Gaza Strip]] (under [[Egypt]]ian rule between 1949 and 1967) and the [[West Bank]] (under Jordanian rule between 1949 and 1967), [[Jordan]], [[Syria]] and [[Lebanon]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Ilan |last=Pappé |author-link=Ilan Pappé |date=2006 |title=The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine |location=Oxford |publisher=Oneworld |page=}}</ref>{{pn|date=May 2024}}

During the war, the [[Haganah]] devised [[Plan Dalet]], which some scholars interpret to have been primarily aimed at ensuring the expulsion of Palestinians,{{sfn|Pappé|2006|pp=xii, 86–126|ps=: "this... blueprint spelled it out clearly and unambiguously: the Palestinians had to... each brigade commander received a list of the villages or neighborhoods that had to be occupied, destroyed, and their inhabitants expelled"}}<ref name="Plan">{{cite journal |last=Khalidi |first=W. |author-link=Walid Khalidi |url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/19199199/Plan-Dalet-Master-Plan-for-the-Conquest-of-Palestine-by-Walid-Khalidi |title=Plan Dalet: master plan for the conquest of Palestine |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170819143040/https://www.scribd.com/doc/19199199/Plan-Dalet-Master-Plan-for-the-Conquest-of-Palestine-by-Walid-Khalidi |archive-date=August 19, 2017 |journal=[[Journal of Palestine Studies]] |volume=18 |number=1 |date=1988 |pages=4–33|doi=10.2307/2537591 |jstor=2537591 }} (published earlier in ''Middle East Forum'', November 1961)</ref> but that interpretation is disputed. [[Efraim Karsh]] states that most of the Arabs who fled left of their own accord or were pressured to leave by their fellow Arabs despite Israeli attempts to convince them to stay.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Karsh |first=Efraim |url=http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/mems/people/staff/academic/karsh/articles/WerethePalestiniansExpelled.pdf |title=Were the Palestinians Expelled? |magazine=[[Commentary (magazine)|Commentary]] |access-date=August 6, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140224112045/http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/mems/people/staff/academic/karsh/articles/WerethePalestiniansExpelled.pdf |archive-date=February 24, 2014}}</ref>

The idea of the transfer of Arabs from Palestine had been considered about half a century beforehand.<ref>{{cite book |title=A Historical Survey of Proposals to Transfer Arabs from Palestine, 1895–1947 |first=Chaim |last=Simons |date=2003 |publisher= |page=}}</ref>{{pn|date=May 2024}}<ref>{{cite book |first=Benny |last=Morris |author-link=Benny Morris |title=Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–1999 |location=New York |date=1999 |page=139 |quote=For many Zionists, beginning with Herzl, the only realistic solution lay in transfer. From 1880 to 1920, some entertained the prospect of Jews and Arabs coexisting in peace. But increasingly after 1920, and more emphatically after 1929, for the vast majority a denouement of conflict appeared inescapable. Following the outbreak of 1936, no mainstream leader was able to conceive of future coexistence and peace without a clear physical separation between the two peoples—achievable only by way of transfer and expulsion.}}</ref>

For example, [[Theodor Herzl]] wrote in his diary in 1895 that the [[Zionist]] movement "shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country."<ref>''The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl'', vol. 1 (New York: Herzl Press and Thomas Yoseloff, 1960), pp. 88, 90</ref> That interpretation of Herzl has been disputed.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Alexander |first1=Edward |last2=Bogdanor |first2=Paul |title=The Jewish Divide Over Israel |publisher=Transaction |year=2006 |pages=251–2 |quote=[The diary entry] had already been a feature of Palestinian propaganda for decades.... Any discussion of relocation was clearly limited to the specific lands assigned to the Jews, rather than the entire territory. Had Herzl envisaged the mass expulsion of population... there would have been no need to discuss its position in the Jewish entity.}}</ref> Forty years later, one of the recommendations in the Report of the British [[Peel Commission]] in 1937 was for a transfer of Arabs from the area of the proposed Jewish state, and it even included a compulsory transfer from the plains of Palestine. That recommendation was not initially objected to by the British Government.<ref>{{cite book |first=Benny |last=Morris |author-link=Benny Morris |date=2003 |title=The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited |chapter=The Idea of Transfer in Zionist Thinking |publisher= |page=}}</ref>{{pn|date=May 2024}}

Scholars have debated [[David Ben-Gurion]]'s views on transfer, particularly in the context of the [[1937 Ben-Gurion letter]], but according to [[Benny Morris]], Ben-Gurion "elsewhere, in unassailable statements... repeatedly endorsed the idea of “transferring” (or expelling) Arabs, or the Arabs, out of the area of the Jewish state-to-be, either "voluntarily" or by compulsion."<ref>[[Michael Rubin (historian)|Michael Rubin]] and [[Benny Morris]] (2011), [http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/12/07/ben-gurion-herzl-quotes-morris-rubin/ Quoting Ben Gurion: An Exchange] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141020181226/http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/12/07/ben-gurion-herzl-quotes-morris-rubin/ |date=2014-10-20 }}, [[Commentary (magazine)]], quote: "...the focus by my critics on this quotation was, in any event, nothing more than (an essentially mendacious) red herring – as elsewhere, in unassailable statements, Ben-Gurion at this time repeatedly endorsed the idea of “transferring” (or expelling) Arabs, or the Arabs, out of the area of the Jewish state-to-be, either “voluntarily” or by compulsion."</ref>

[[Gush Etzion]] and [[List of villages depopulated during the Arab–Israeli conflict#Jewish villages 2|Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem]] were depopulated by following the [[Jordanian annexation of the West Bank]]. The population was absorbed by the new [[State of Israel]]; and many of the locations were repopulated after the [[Six-Day War]] in 1967. During that war, Arabs again faced mass displacement, known as the [[Naksa]]. Estimates range between 280,000 and 325,000 displaced, many of whom had been living in the West Bank after being expelled or fleeing there during the [[Nakba]] between 1947 and 1949.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.science.co.il/Arab-Israeli-conflict/articles/Frantzman-2007-08-16.php |title=Ethnic cleansing of Jews by Arabs in pre-state Israel |website=www.science.co.il |access-date=May 4, 2018 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180115001827/https://www.science.co.il/Arab-Israeli-conflict/articles/Frantzman-2007-08-16.php |archive-date=January 15, 2018}}</ref><ref name="History of the War of Independence: The first month">Milstein, U. "[https://books.google.com/books?id=CviXmYN64xQC&dq=gush+etzion&pg=PA356 History of the War of Independence: The first month] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180115001833/https://books.google.cz/books?id=CviXmYN64xQC&pg=PA356&dq=gush+etzion&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwix8OaC8NfYAhXMfFAKHS_ODd8Q6AEIMzAD |date=2018-01-15 }}"</ref><ref>A Just Zionism: On the Morality of the Jewish State, Gans C, Oxford University Press "[https://books.google.com/books?id=LXziBwAAQBAJ&q=ethnic+cleansing+of+Jews+after+1948+war%22&pg=PT103] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180115001644/https://books.google.cz/books?id=LXziBwAAQBAJ&pg=PT103&dq=ethnic+cleansing+of+Jews+after+1948+war&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjEsd2w9NfYAhUPZlAKHU1QCOAQ6AEIRDAF|date=2018-01-15}}</ref><ref>Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017, Ian Black, Grove Press, 2017</ref>

===Persia===
{{See also|Great Surgun|History_of_the_Kurds#Displacement_of_the_Kurds|Khorasani Kurds}}

Removal of populations from along their borders with the [[Ottoman Turks|Ottomans]] in [[Kurdistan]] and the [[Caucasus]] was of strategic importance to the [[Safavids]]. Hundreds of thousands of [[Kurds]], along with large groups of [[Armenians]], [[Assyrian people|Assyrians]], [[Azeris]], and [[Turkmens]], were forcibly removed from the border regions and resettled in the interior of [[Persia]].That was a means of cutting off contact with other members of the groups across the borders as well as limiting passage of peoples. Under [[Tahmasp I]] the Safavids deported a huge portion of the Kurdish population in [[Anatolia]] to [[Khorasan province|Khorasan]], creating the modern [[Khorasani Kurds]]. Some Kurdish tribes were deported farther east, into [[Gharjistan]] in the [[Hindu Kush]] mountains of [[Afghanistan]], about 1500 miles away from their former homes in [[Syrian Kurdistan|western Kurdistan]].

===Ancient Assyria===
{{Main|Resettlement policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire}}
[[File:Deportation of Jews by Assyrians.svg|thumb|right|150px|The Jews were one of the many peoples forcibly mass deported by the Assyrians.]]
In the ancient world, population transfer was the more humane alternative to putting all the males of a conquered territory to death and enslaving the women and children. From the 13th century BCE, [[Assyria]] used [[military history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire#Deportations|mass deportation]] as a punishment for [[List of revolutions and rebellions|rebellions]]. By the [[9th century BCE]], the Assyrians regularly deported thousands of restless subjects to other lands. Assyria forcibly resettled the inhabitants of the [[Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)|Northern Kingdom of Israel]] in 720 BCE; these became known as the [[Ten Lost Tribes]].

===Indian subcontinent===
{{See also|Partition of India|Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus}}
[[File:Refugees on train roof during Partition.ogv|thumb|Video of refugees on train roof during partition of India]]
When [[British India]] was going through an independence movement prior to the [[World War II|Second World War]], some pro-Muslim organisations (most notably the Muslim League) demanded a Muslim state consisting of two non-contiguous territories: [[East Pakistan]] and [[West Pakistan]]. To facilitate the [[Partition of India|creation of new states along religious lines]] (as opposed to racial or linguistic lines as people shared common histories and languages), [[Partition of India#Independence and population exchanges|population exchanges between India and Pakistan]] were implemented. More than 5 million [[Hindu]]s and [[Sikhs]] moved from present-day Pakistan to present-day India, and the same number of [[Muslims]] moved the other way.{{citation needed|date=June 2018}} A large number of people, more than a million by some estimates, died in the accompanying violence. Despite the movement of large number of Muslims to Pakistan, an equal number of Muslims chose to stay in India. However, most of the Hindu and Sikh population in Pakistan moved to India in the following years. The Muslim immigrants to Pakistan mostly settled in [[Karachi]] and became known as the Urdu speaking [[Muhajir (Urdu-speaking people)|Muhajir community]].

From 1989 to 1992, the ethnic Hindu Kashmiri Pandit population was forcibly moved out of [[Kashmir]] by a minority Urdu-speaking Muslims.{{citation needed|date=March 2020}} The imposition of [[Urdu]] led to a decline of usage of local languages such as Kashmiri and Dogri. The resultant violence led to the death of many Hindus and the exodus of nearly all Hindus.{{citation needed|date=March 2020}}

On the [[Indian Ocean]] island of [[Diego Garcia]] between 1967 and 1973, the British government forcibly removed 2000 [[Chagossians|Chagossian]] islanders to make way for a [[United States Armed Forces|U.S. Armed Forces]] base. Despite court judgments in their favour, they have not been allowed to return from their exile in [[Mauritius]], but there are signs that financial compensation and an official apology are being considered by the British government.

===Afghanistan===
{{Further|Pashtun colonization of northern Afghanistan}}
In the 1880s, [[Abdur Rahman Khan]] moved the rebellious [[Ghilzai]] [[Pashtuns]] from the southern part of the country to the northern part.<ref>Peter Tomsen, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=zz9_Ve29eL0C&pg=PA42 The Wars of Afghanistan: Messianic Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts, and the Failures of Great Powers]'', (Public Affairs: 2011), p. 42.</ref><ref>Edward Girardet, ''Killing the Cranes,'' London: Chelsea Green</ref> In addition, Abdur Rahman and his successors encouraged Pashtuns, with various incentives, to settle into northern Afghanistan in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

===Cambodia===
{{main|Democratic Kampuchea#Evacuation of cities}}
One of the [[Khmer Rouge]]'s first acts was to move most of the urban population into the countryside. [[Phnom Penh]], its population of 2.5 million people including as many as 1.5 million wartime refugees living with relatives or in urban area, was soon nearly empty. Similar evacuations occurred at [[Battambang Province|Battambang]], [[Kampong Cham Province|Kampong Cham]], [[Siem Reap Province|Siem Reap]], [[Kampong Thom Province|Kampong Thom]] and throughout the country's other towns and cities. The Khmer Rouge attempted to turn [[Cambodia]] into a classless society by depopulating cities and forcing the urban population ("New People") into agricultural [[collective farming|communes]]. The entire population was forced to become farmers in [[labor camp]]s.

===Caucasia===
{{See also|Deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia|Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush|Flight of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians}}
In the [[Caucasus|Caucasian]] region of the [[former Soviet Union]], ethnic population transfers have affected many thousands of individuals in [[Armenia]], [[Nagorno-Karabakh]] and [[Azerbaijan]] proper; in [[Abkhazia]], [[South Ossetia]] and [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]] proper and in [[Chechnya]] and adjacent areas within [[Russia]].

===Middle East===
* During the [[Kurdish rebellions]] in Turkey from 1920 and until 1937, hundreds of thousands of [[Kurdish refugees]] were forced to relocate.
* After the creation of the State of Israel and the [[1948 Palestine war|Israel Independence War]], a strong wave of [[anti-Semitism]] in the [[Arab countries]] forced many [[Jews]] to [[Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries|flee]] to Europe, the Americas and Israel. The number estimated is between 850,000 and 1,000,000 people. Those who arrived to Israel were put in [[refugee camps]] until the state had helped them to recover.<ref>"[http://www.jimena.org/about-jimena/mission-statement-and-organizational-history/ Jews (JIMENA)|JIMENA's Mission and History] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141025002533/http://www.jimena.org/about-jimena/mission-statement-and-organizational-history/ |date=2014-10-25 }}". JIMENA. Retrieved 2 June 2015.</ref><ref>[http://www.jimena.org/ Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130307045701/http://www.jimena.org/ |date=2013-03-07 }} (JIMENA)</ref>
* Up to 3,000,000 people, mainly Kurds, [[Kurdish villages depopulated by Turkey|have been displaced]] in the [[Kurdish–Turkish conflict]],<ref name="displaced">{{cite web |url=http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/JCS/bin/get.cgi?directory=FALL98/articles/&filename=Gunter.htm |title=Conflict Studies Journal at the University of New Brunswick |publisher=Lib.unb.ca |access-date=2010-08-29 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111013181211/http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/JCS/bin/get.cgi?directory=FALL98%2Farticles%2F&filename=Gunter.htm |archive-date=2011-10-13 }}</ref> an estimated 1,000,000 of which were still internally displaced as of 2009.<ref>{{cite web |author=Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) – Norwegian Refugee Council |url=http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004CE90B/(httpCountrySummaries)/66D21F80E3A69E41C125732200255E35?OpenDocument&count=10000 |title=Need for continued improvement in response to protracted displacement |publisher=Internal-displacement.org |access-date=2011-04-15 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110131234512/http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004CE90B/%28httpCountrySummaries%29/66D21F80E3A69E41C125732200255E35?OpenDocument&count=10000 |archive-date=2011-01-31 }}</ref>
* For decades, [[Saddam Hussein]] forcibly [[Arabization|Arabized]] northern Iraq.<ref name=arabization>{{cite web|url=https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/iraq0804/4.htm|title=Claims in Conflict: Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in Northern Iraq: III. Background|website=www.hrw.org|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151118103918/https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/iraq0804/4.htm|archive-date=2015-11-18}}</ref> Sunni Arabs [[Kurdish villages destroyed during the Iraqi Arabization campaign|drove out]] at least 70,000 Kurds from western [[Mosul]] to replace them with Sunni Arabs.<ref>{{cite news |title=Strife in Mosul as Sunni Arabs Drive Out Kurds |url=https://ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2007/5/independentstate1378.htm |access-date=12 June 2022 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=30 May 2007 |via=Ekurd Daily}}</ref> Now, only eastern Mosul is Kurdish.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20080512055628/http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JD03Ak01.html The other Iraqi civil war], Asia Times</ref>
* During the [[Gulf War|First Gulf War]], a survey reported that 732,000 Yemeni immigrants [[Yemenis expelled from Gulf Countries|were forced to leave]] [[Gulf Countries]] to return to Yemen. Most of them had been in [[Saudi Arabia]].<ref>United Nation Publication, 2003. Levels and Trends of International Migration to Selected Countries. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs p. 37. Available at:{{cite web |url=https://unp.un.org/details.aspx?entry=E03006 |title=United Nations Publications |access-date=2015-03-13 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402171543/https://unp.un.org/details.aspx?entry=E03006 |archive-date=2015-04-02 }}</ref>
* After the First Gulf War, [[Kuwait]]i authorities [[Palestinian expulsion from Kuwait|expelled nearly 200,000 Palestinians]] from Kuwait.<ref name=ppp>{{cite journal |author=Steven J. Rosen |journal=Middle East Quarterly |title=Kuwait Expels Thousands of Palestinians |url=http://www.meforum.org/3391/kuwait-expels-palestinians |year=2012 |quote=From March to September 1991, about 200,000 Palestinians were expelled from the emirate in a systematic campaign of terror, violence, and economic pressure while another 200,000 who fled during the Iraqi occupation were denied return. |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511182542/http://www.meforum.org/3391/kuwait-expels-palestinians |archive-date=2013-05-11 }}</ref> That was partly a response to the alignment of [[PLO]] leader [[Yasser Arafat]] with Saddam Hussein.
* In August 2005, [[Israel's unilateral disengagement plan|Israel forcibly transferred]] all 10,000 [[Israeli settlement|Israeli settlers]] from the [[Gaza Strip]] and the north of the [[West Bank]].<ref>[[UN Security Council Resolution 446|Resolution 446]], [[UN Security Council Resolution 465|Resolution 465]], Resolution 484, among others</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Applicability of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem, and the other occupied Arab territories |publisher=[[United Nations]] |date=December 17, 2003 |url=http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/97360ee7a29e68a085256df900723485/d6f5d7049734efff85256e1200677754 |access-date=2006-09-27 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070603050844/https://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/97360ee7a29e68a085256df900723485/d6f5d7049734efff85256e1200677754 |archive-date=3 June 2007 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory |publisher=[[International Court of Justice]] |date=July 9, 2004 |url=http://domino.un.org/UNISPAl.NSF/85255e950050831085255e95004fa9c3/3740e39487a5428a85256ecc005e157a |access-date=2006-09-27 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070828174856/https://domino.un.org/UNISPAl.NSF/85255e950050831085255e95004fa9c3/3740e39487a5428a85256ecc005e157a |archive-date=August 28, 2007 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention: statement by the International Committee of the Red Cross |publisher=[[International Committee of the Red Cross]] |date=December 5, 2001 |url=http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList247/D86C9E662022D64E41256C6800366D55#2 |access-date=2006-09-27 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060928224952/http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList247/D86C9E662022D64E41256C6800366D55#2 |archive-date=September 28, 2006 }}</ref>
* About 6.5 million [[Syrian refugees]] moved within the country, and 4.3 million left for neighboring countries because of the [[Syrian Civil War]]. Many were displaced by the fighting, with forced expulsions taking place against both Sunni Arabs and Alawites.<ref>{{cite web |title=2015 UNHCR country operations profile – Syrian Arab Republic |url=http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e486a76.html |year=2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160210000431/http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e486a76.html |archive-date=2016-02-10 }}</ref>