Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia

The Khmer Rouge period (1975–1979) refers to the rule of Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, Khieu Samphan and the Communist Party of Kampuchea over Cambodia, which the Khmer Rouge renamed as Democratic Kampuchea.The four-year period cost approximately 2 million lives through the combined result of political executions, disease, starvation, and forced labor. Due to the large numbers, the deaths during the rule of the Khmer Rouge are commonly known as the Cambodian Holocaust or Cambodian genocide.The Khmer Rouge took power at the end of the Cambodian Civil War and were only toppled after the invasion of Cambodia by the neighbouring Socialist Republic of Vietnam in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. Most of Cambodia remained under Vietnamese occupation for over a decade.