You could compare Cambodia, during the Khmer Rouge, to a barren waste land. The Khmer Rouge managed to empty all the cities of its citizens and move them to communal camps in the country side. The trek to the countryside alone killed hundreds of Cambodians but once they got to the camps thousands more died. The Khmer Rouge also found it necessary to kill anyone who was educated. This killed thousands more and in the end the Khmer Rouge managed to kill nearly two million people and turned a country upside down.

Source: Chandler, David P. The Land and People of Cambodia. U.S.A.: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.