The Khmer Rouge Capture of Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975 That Initiated the Cambodian Genocide
The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot captured Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975 and immediately ordered the evacuation of the city's approximately 2 million residents to the countryside. The "Democratic Kampuchea" regime that followed killed approximately 1.7 million Cambodians — roughly a quarter of the national population — across 1975-1979 in one of the densest genocides of the 20th century.
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