Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of 
ethnic, 
racial, or 
religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically 
homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as 
deportation or 
population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at 
forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction. Both the definition and charge of ethnic cleansing is often disputed, with some researchers including and others excluding 
coercive assimilation or mass killings as a means of depopulating an area of a particular group, or calling it a euphemism for 
genocide or 
cultural genocide.