British Concentration Camps

British Concentration Camps were commonly used throughout the British Empire to persecute various peoples in their colonies.

India[edit]

During the British colonial period in India, "Relief Camps"(in reality Concentration Camps) were set up during the Famines. Viceroy Lytton's deputy, Richard Temple, was selected to run these Concentration Camps. Temple was under orders to ensure that there was no "unnecessary" expenditure on relief works. Starving Indians who reached these camps were made to do backbreaking labor in exchange for only 16 ounces of rice per day, less than the diet for Jewish inmates at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Nazi Germany.^[1]

South Africa[edit]

In 1900, during the Second Boer War, the British under Lord Kitchener used scorched earth tactics. They destroyed anything which could be of potential use to Boer guerillas and imprisoned families of guerillas or anyone suspected of giving them support. The British exploited this tactic, sending displaced families to Concentration Camps. Within the camps, there were poor sanitary conditions and disease. Around 30,000 Boers died in the camps, more than 2/3 being children, of typhoid, measles, scurvy and dysentery.^[2]

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