| Nanshitou massacre | |
|---|---|
| Part of Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II | |
| Location | Nanshitou Refugee Camp in Guangzhou, China |
| Date | 1942-1945 |
| Target | Chinese civilians |
Attack type | Massacre, Human experimentation, Poisoning |
| Deaths | 100,000 (lowest estimate) |
| Perpetrators | Unit 8604 of the Imperial Japanese Army |
The Nashitou massacre (simplified Chinese: 南石头大屠杀; traditional Chinese: 南石頭大屠殺) was large-scale unnatural deaths among the refugees detained by the Imperial Japanese Army and Wang Jingwei regime at the Nanshitou Refugee Camp in Guangzhou, China, between 1942 and 1945. The event was triggered by the Japanese expulsion of Chinese residents from Japanese-occupied Hong Kong in 1942, which resulted in refugees crowding into the city of Guangzhou by ferry along the Pearl River.[1] They were stopped at Nanshitou for physical examinations.[2][3] A former soldier of Unit 8604 stated that the unit was instructed to poison Chinese refugees with the pathogens of typhoid and paratyphoid, which they put into the thin porridge and drinking water prepared for the refugees, causing a large number of deaths.[4] Additionally, survivors claimed that the Japanese used detainees for human experimentation.[5] In the 1950s and 1980s, Guangzhou Paper Mill found a massive amount of human skeletons and bones during construction projects, which were believed to be victims of the refugee camp.[6][2] Chinese scholar Tan Yuanheng asserts that at least 100,000 died in the refugee camp.[4]