Massacre at Huế
massacre in Vietnam War
The Huế massacre (Vietnamese: Thảm sát Tết Mậu Thân ở Huế, lit. 'Tết Offensive massacre in Huế') was the summary executions and mass murder perpetrated by the Viet Cong and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) during their capture, military occupation and later withdrawal from the city of Huế during the Tet Offensive, considered one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.
The Battle of Huế began on 31 January 1968, and lasted for 26 days. During the months and years that followed, dozens of mass graves were discovered in and around Huế. The estimated death toll was between 2,800 and 6,000 civilians and prisoners of war, or 5–10% of the total population of Huế. The Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) released a list of 4,062 victims identified as having been either murdered or abducted. Victims were found bound, tortured, and sometimes buried alive. Many victims were also clubbed to death.
A number of U.S. and South Vietnamese authorities as well as a number of journalists and historians who investigated the events took the discoveries, along with other evidence, as proof that a large-scale atrocity had been carried out in and around Huế during its four-week occupation. The killings were perceived as part of a large-scale purge of a whole social stratum, including anyone friendly to American forces in the region. Opposing press reports alleged that South Vietnamese "revenge squads" had executed communist sympathizers in the aftermath of the occupation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1641195. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1968.
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This entry incorporates text from “Massacre at Huế” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.