Editing Scorched earth (section)

===Second Boer War===
[[File:VerskroeideAarde1 crop.jpg|thumb|upright=1|[[Boer]] civilians watching British soldiers blow up their house with dynamite after they had been given 10 minutes to gather their belongings]]

During the [[Second Boer War]] (1899–1902), British forces applied a scorched-earth policy in the occupied [[Boer republics]] under the direction of General [[Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener|Lord Kitchener]]. Numerous [[Boers]], refusing to accept military defeat, adopted guerrilla warfare despite the capture of both of their capital cities. As a result, under Lord Kitchener's command British forces initiated a policy of the destruction of the farms and the homes of civilians in the republics to prevent the Boers who were still fighting from obtaining food and supplies.{{sfn|Downes|2007}} Boer noncombatants inhabiting the republics (mostly women and children) were interned in [[Second Boer War concentration camps|concentration camps]] to prevent them from supplying guerillas still in the field.{{sfn|sahistory|2008}}

The existence of the concentration camps was exposed by English activist [[Emily Hobhouse]], who toured the camps and began petitioning the [[Government of the United Kingdom|British government]] to change its policy.{{sfn|Hobhouse|1901}}{{sfn|Hobhouse|1907}} In an attempt to counter Hobhouse's activism, the British government commissioned the Fawcett Commission, but it confirmed Hobhouse's findings.{{sfn|Fawcett|1901}} The British government then claimed that it perceived the concentration camps to be humanitarian measure and were established to care for displaced noncombatants until the war's end, in response to mounting criticism of the camps in Britain. A number of factors, including outbreaks of infectious diseases, a lack of planning and supplies for the camps, and overcrowding led to numerous internees dying in the camps.{{sfn|Doel|2017|p=60}} A decade after the war, historian P. L. A. Goldman estimated that 27,927 Boers died in the concentration camps, 26,251 women and children (of whom more than 22,000 were under the age of 16) and 1,676 men over the age of 16, with 1,421 being above the age of 16.{{sfn|rootsweb|1999}}
The number of Black Africans who also suffered the same is unknown.