The Congo Free State Atrocities: 10-15 million (jul 1, 1885 – nov 8, 1908)

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The Congo Free State Atrocities were carried out by King Leopold II of Belgium and his agents against the Congolese people between 1885 and 1908 (Belgian annexation), with an estimated death toll between 1 million (Historians Louis and Stengers) and 15 million (various estimates).

King Leopold II's regime also engaged in forced labor, enslavement, mutilation (particularly hand amputations), rape, sexual slavery, torture, village burning, and systematic economic exploitation. It has been labeled as genocide by Raphael Lemkin (creator of the term "genocide", in an unpublished 1950s manuscript), genocide scholar Adam Jones, the British House of Commons (2005 Early Day Motion signed by 48 MPs calling it "colonial genocide"), and Robert G. Weisbord (Journal of Genocide Research, 2003).

Important note: Many prominent historians, including Adam Hochschild and David Van Reybrouck, argue this was not genocide in the strict legal sense because there was no intent to systematically eliminate a specific ethnic group, though they acknowledge it was mass slaughter on a horrific scale. The scholarly consensus is that these were crimes against humanity of genocidal proportions, but the classification as "genocide" remains contested.

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