Quantifying Ethnic Cleansing: An Application to Darfur

Abstract

This paper has two objectives: First, to develop and critically examine various measures of ethnic cleansing on the basis of a review of the existing literature. Second, to apply the suggested measures to a unique sample of 530 villages in Southwestern Darfur. Our data shows that 57 percent of the popu- lation from the targeted groups have ed the area and that their share of the total population has fallen from 70 to 46 percent. The degree of ethnic diversity at the regional level is very high but due to the high level of segregation, ethnic diversity at the village level is extremely low. Our results suggest that admin- istrative units with a more pronounced pattern of segregation also experienced a greater degree of ethnic cleansing.