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Did the British Commit Genocide in the Second Boer War?

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With the start of the Second Boer War on the 11th October 1899 till its end, on the 31st May 1902, between the British soldiers and the Afrikaner rebels, one of the least publicised points of the war is what happened to the Boer Prisoners of War held in the British concentration camps. This British plan was used to house captured Boer citizens in order to reduce the supplies sent to the Boer rebels. The fact is that these camps are responsible for the deaths of 10% of the Boer population. So could what happened in concentration camps be considered Genocide, or just an action made by the British in order to win the Second Boer War

The First of the British concentration camps were set up after the Battle of Elandslaagte, on the 21st October 1899 and were made for the captured prisoners. The camp at Bellevue was opened on the 28th of February, although, before its establishment, many prisoners were kept on docked ships. By the end of 1900, with the first invasion of the Cape Colony, more and more soldiers kept coming in, and camps were starting to appear in Natal to sustain the excess amount of soldiers. The solution was to send the rebel soldiers overseas to the other British colonies, resulting in approximately 25 000 Boer soldiers being sent to other countries and thus, the concept of the concentration camp was created by the British at the turn of the century.

It was only in July 1901, with the new leadership of Commander-in-Chief Kitchener, that the British started

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