1-148-688 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

Boer families in a British prison camp, 1901. Distressed condition of Boer civilians dispossed or imprisoned for resisting the British. This represented the first use of the internment of civilians in camps in wartime. The objective of the British was to hamper the Boer insurgents by removing civilians from the land, thereby restricting the fighters' food supplies. Diet and sanitary conditions in the camps were poor and some 28,000 internees died from disease and malnutrition. From Le Petit Journal. (Paris, 20 January 1901).