Thousands of politicians and bureaucrats accused of association with previous governments were executed. Phnom Penh was turned into a ghost city, while people in the countryside were dying of starvation, illnesses, or execution.
The casualty list from the civil war, Pol Pot's consolidation of power, and the later intervention by Vietnam is disputed. Different estimates vary from 750,000 to over two million. Credible Western and Eastern sources put the death toll inflicted by the Khmer Rouge at 1.6 million. A specific source, such as a figure of 3 million deaths between 1975 and 1979, was given by the People's Republic of Kampuchea. François Ponchaud suggested 2.3 million—although this includes hundreds of thousands who died prior to the CPK takeover and has been disputed the Yale Cambodian Genocide Project estimates 1.7 million; Amnesty International estimated 1.4 million; and the United States Department of State, 1.2 million. Khieu Samphan and Pol Pot, who could be expected to give underestimations, cited figures of 1 million and 800,000, respectively