| Nigerian Civil War | 1,000,000 | 3,000,000 |
2,000,000 | Nigeria | 1966 | 1970 | 4 years | Ethnic cleansings of the Igbo people followed by Civil War. |
Historical Context
The Siege of Leningrad was one of the deadliest and most destructive sieges in the history of the world – quite possibly the deadliest ever. It would last for 872 days, and there would be more than a million Soviet civilian casualties, plus another million Soviet military casualties and half a million German casualties.
The effect of the siege on the city was infamous. Food shortages were chronic, deaths from starvation, disease and cold were constant and cannibalism occurred throughout the years of the siege. The number of deaths in Leningrad was the single largest loss of life ever known in a modern city.
The Soviets managed to break the siege on 18 January 1943 by opening a narrow land corridor, but it would not be fully lifted until 27 January 1944 when they managed to fully repel the Germans on their drive west.
Killing Spree of Lady Death
Soviet sniper, Lyudmila Pavlichenko is the most successful female sniper in history, having killed 309 German
Stalingrad was one of the most decisive battles on the Eastern Front in the Second World War. The Soviet Union inflicted a catastrophic defeat on the German Army in and around this strategically important city on the Volga river, which bore the name of the Soviet dictator, Josef Stalin.
| Country | Military Deaths | Total Civilian and Military Deaths |
|---|---|---|
| Soviet Union | 8,800,000-10,700,000 | 24,000,000 |
| United Kingdom | 383,600 | 450,700 |
| United States | 416,800 | 418,500 |
| Yugoslavia | 446,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Event | Lowest estimate | Location |
|---|---|---|
| World War II | 60,000,000 | Worldwide |
| Three Kingdoms | 36,000,000 | China |
| Mongol conquests | 30,000,000 | Eurasia |
| European colonization of the Americas | 8,400,000 | Americas |
NKVD files report the first use of human meat as food on 13 December 1941.[80] The report outlines thirteen cases, which range from a mother smothering her eighteen-month-old to feed her three older children to a plumber killing his wife to feed his sons and nieces.[80]
By December 1942 the NKVD had arrested 2,105 cannibals – dividing them into two legal categories: corpse-eating (trupoyedstvo) and person-eating (lyudoyedstvo). The latter were usually shot while the former were sent to prison. The Soviet Criminal Code had no provision for cannibalism, so all convictions were carried out under Code Article 59–3, “special category banditry”.[81] Instances of person-eating were significantly lower than that of corpse-eating; of the 300 people arrested in April 1942 for cannibalism, only 44 were murderers.[82] 64% of cannibals were female, 44% were unemployed, 90% were illiterate, 15% were rooted inhabitants, and only 2% had any criminal records. More cases occurred in the outlying districts than in the city itself. Cannibals were often unsupported women with dependent children and no previous convictions, which allowed for a certain level of clemency in legal proceedings.[83]
Given the scope of mass starvation, cannibalism was relatively rare.[84] Far more common was murder for ration cards. In the first six months of 1942, Leningrad witnessed 1,216 such murders. At the same time, Leningrad was experiencing its highest mortality rate, as high as 100,000 people per month. Lisa Kirschenbaum notes that rates “of cannibalism provided an opportunity for emphasizing that the majority of Leningraders managed to maintain their cultural norms in the most unimaginable circumstances.”