There are many dictators around the world who are well-known for their oppressive ruling of countries, such as Kim Jong Un. But there are many others that operate under the radar of the world media. They may not have a direct connection to the West or have a nuclear arsenal at their disposal, but their despotic actions need to be known. So we’ve decided to put together a list of the worst of the worst. Six rulers who have been profiled on OZY and are among the cruelest, most corrupt despots around today. They may hail from countries as different as Eritrea and Laos, but what they share is a shocking disregard for human rights and seemingly unfettered power to persecute their own. 
 
 You may not recognize the name, but this 77-year-old ruler of Uzbekistan has one of the most abysmal human rights records in the world today. For 24 years running, the Central Asian nation near the Caspian Sea has been terrorized by its own leader, who has killed thousands of unarmed protesters, forced children to work in slavelike conditions and imprisoned thousands for their religious beliefs. Karimov has even executed prisoners without a trial, according to our reporting, including boiling a couple to death. Read more here. 
 
 Since taking over Gambia in a 1994 coup, President Jammeh — or “His Excellency,” as he prefers to be called — has ruled the country with a lethal mix of fear, repression and murder. He’s been know to fire into crowds of peaceful protesters, has imprisoned people for suspected witchcraft and, at one depressive point, demanded homosexual persons leave the country within 24 hours or face the possibility of being beheaded. Read more here. 
 
 This 69-year-old has been the president of Eritrea since its 1991 independence, and yet not a single citizen has ever voted for him. And why would they? It’s been 24 years of crushing despotism, where torture is routine, prisons are overstuffed and everyone from the age of 15 to 70 is forced into indefinite military service. Not only that, but Afwerki’s administration has reportedly imprisoned thousands of people based on their political affiliations. Read more here. 
 
 This guy is far from being a noble individual. Mswati has used his concentrated power in Swaziland, the last absolute monarchy in Africa, to feed his every despotic need. For one, he is reported to force young women to marry him whenever the spirit moves him (or about every two years), because polygamy is, no surprise, legal in Swaziland. He’s also not really interested in democracy or feeding the poor or finding jobs for the 23 percent of the population that is currently unemployed. This despot, who became king at 18, has a total of 15 wives and an indefinite number of luxury cars. He may cut a cartoonish figure, but his corrupt ways are no laughing matter. Read more here. 
 
 Condoleezza Rice has called him “Europe’s last dictator,” and he’s playing his role to the hilt. President of Belarus for more than two decades, Lukashenko has ruled the former Soviet state with an iron fist that would make the Kremlin proud. He censors the press, sends human rights activists to labor camps and gets rid of political rivals, either by throwing them in jail or, in the case of his former prime minister and head of the opposition, making them disappear. Read more here. 
 
 The president of Laos may be 79 years old, wear spectacles and have thinning hair, but his mild appearance masks a tyrannical personality. Boasting a record of human rights violations as long as the Mekong River traversing this Southeast Asian country, Sayasone’s government owns all newspapers, TV stations and radio stations, effectively snuffing all free expression. And if anyone manages to rise above these restrictions, they’re bound to be imprisoned or even disappear. Read more here. ||||| A longtime dictator in one of Africa’s smallest countries is refusing to relinquish power, ignoring a Jan. 18 deadline set by a coalition of neighboring countries who have threatened to use military action to force his departure. Gambia is now on tenterhooks as West African troops entered Gambian territory late on Jan. 19, giving Yahya Jammeh just hours to cede power and end his 23-year-long dictatorship. Here’s how the country got here: 
 
 How did this all start? 
 
 Jammeh has held power in the former British colony of around 2 million people for 23 years, winning four consecutive elections since taking over in a 1994 military coup. He has been accused of using torture, intimidation, enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrests to preserve his rule, and Human Rights Watch questioned the fairness about the upcoming elections, alleging that similar sort of tactics were being deployed ahead of Dec. 1 elections. 
 
 The run-up to the election campaign was further blighted when 30 opposition supporters, including Ousainou Darboe, the leader of the country’s largest opposition party United Democratic Party (UDP), were jailed. Political novice Adama Barrow succeeded Darboe as UDP leader and in Oct. seven opposition parties united behind the 51-year-old, endorsing him as the main challenger against Jammeh. 
 
 Property developer Barrow galvanized Gambians by promising economic change during the buildup to December’s election. The country’s lack of job prospects has led to a brain drain, where remittences form around 20% of its GDP. It has also pushed thousands of Gambians to make the perilous journey to cross the Mediterranean in search for better prospects in Europe. 
 
 Barrow, who was a relative unknown before the election, won by a 5% margin, despite voters allegedly facing intimidation and threats from Jammeh’s thugs. In a move that surprised many, the dictator conceded on Dec. 2 to Barrow’s election win— which saw jubilant crowds flood the capital, Banjul, in celebration of what many thought would be Gambia’s first democratic transition of power. 
 
 What went wrong? 
 
 Things turned sour after members of Barrow’s coalition said that the dictator would be prosecuted for his alleged abuses once Barrow took office. Jammeh performed a U-turn and sent the country to a political crisis by calling for a fresh election and for the Supreme Court to annul the results. 
 
 On Jan. 15, it was reported Barrow, for security reasons, had moved to Senegal until his planned inauguration. On Thursday, Barrow was inaugurated at the Gambian embassy in Senegal’s capital Dakar. During his speech, he instructed Gambia’s armed forces to remain in their barracks. 
 
 But Jammeh is still refusing to relinquish power? 
 
 Yes. On Wednesday, the country’s Parliament’s voted to extend Jammeh’s term for another six months, after he issued a state of emergency. This prompted British and Dutch travel operators to evacuate hundreds of travellers from Gambia’s seaside resorts— a major source of income for the country. Jammeh remains in the State House, the presidential property in the capital, after a diplomatic effort by Mauritanian President Mohamed Abdul Aziz to persuade him to stand down failed. Diplomats, led by Guinea’s President Alpha Conde, are making a last ditch mediation effort on Friday morning. 
 
 Does Jammeh have many allies? 
 
 No. The strongman’s vice-president and eight other cabinet ministers have resigned since January while almost a dozen Gambian diplomats abroad have called for him to accept the vote. The latest ally to flee is Edward Gomez, lawyer for Jammeh’s Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) party, who filed the petition to the Supreme Court asking it to annul the election results. Gomez wrote in a statement that he has left for Senegal, and implored the dictator to step down in order to avoid a “violent and gruesome end.” 
 
 What about internationally? 
 
 The international community wants Jammeh to go. Since December, two high-level delegations from the regional bloc known as the Economic Community of West African States [ECOWAS] — which included Liberian leader Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, Sierra Leone’s leader Ernest Bai Koroma and then-outgoing Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama— failed to convince Jammeh to leave peacefully. 
 
 “His biggest problem is he doesn’t have any friends internationally” says Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at Chatham House. The eccentric dictator, who claims to have the ability to cure HIV with local herbs, has managed to isolate himself from not only ECOWAS and its only neighbor Senegal, Vines says, but he has also fallen out with former allies like Iran and Taiwan. “He was aligned to Taipei, and then he switched to Beijing, but Beijing is not going to lose capital to tiny Gambia,” Vines says. 
 
 In Jan. 2016 he declared Gambia an Islamic Republic, which was seen as a way to repositioning the country’s foreign relations. “He rebranded Gambia as a Islamic Republic hoping it will bring in a lot of Gulf money but that has not happened either” Vines says. 
 
 The impasse has since forced ECOWAS to issue an ultimatum to Jammeh: leave power by midnight Jan. 18 or face military action — a stance that has the full backing of the U.S., the E.U., the U.N. Security Council and the African Union. 
 
 Is a military confrontation likely? 
 
 The threat is there. For the past month, ECOWAS has been preparing a Senegal-led military force to intervene if Barrow is prevented from assuming the presidency. West African troops, who gathered on Gambia’s border on Jan. 18, entered the country on Thursday. Jammeh was given a noon, Jan. 20, deadline to leave office, or face being forced out by the UN-backed forces, BBC reports. 
 
 It remains unclear whether Jammeh will take a military stand or how Gambia’s military will fight— ECOWAS’ troops have, so far, faced no resistance. An Amnesty report suggests a split in the military ranks, as at least five members of Jammeh’s armed forces have been detained for allegedly supporting Barrow. “The Gambian military is divided along ethnic lines and it’s really unclear whether forces loyal to Jammeh will fight against ECOWAS considering how they lack the wherewithal and strength to do so,” Robin Sanders, a former US ambassador to ECOWAS, told Al Jazeera. Gambia’s military is also thought to have a mere 1,000 soldiers, compared to ECOWAS’ standby force of around 6,000 to 10,000 troops, Lucy James, a researcher on Gambia for political risk consultancy, Control Risks, tells TIME. 
 
 Fears of unrest have already caused at least 26,000 Gambians to flee into Senegal, the U.N. says. War risks a humanitarian crisis, that may see its effects on the West Africa’s regional stability as well as the shores of Europe. In the face of that, Vines believes ECOWAS won’t be too hasty to intervene. “Gambia will see a time of parallel administrations” says Vines, “but it will be resolved, at the end of the day Jammeh is isolated and will become increasingly more vulnerable after Jan. 19.” 
 
 What might happen to Jammeh? 
 
 It has been suggested that Morocco and Nigeria have offered Jammeh political asylum, but he doesn’t seem eager to take it. Nigeria gave Liberian warlord Charles Taylor political asylum in 2003 in order to end Liberia’s civil war, years later the country allowed Taylor to be extradited for war crimes— a fate that Jammeh is keen to avoid. ||||| Yahya Jammeh, the Gambia’s embattled dictator, is digging in as pressure mounts on him to go. His presidential term expired at midnight on Wednesday, yet he has refused to budge. His intransigence has created a political crisis that threatens the peace and stability of the smallest country in mainland Africa. 
 
 All diplomatic efforts to peacefully resolve the impasse have so far failed. The last ditch efforts by Jammeh’s confidante, the president of Mauritania, to persuade him to step down collapsed a few hours before the Wednesday deadline. Jammeh has also rebuffed several offers of asylum from other African countries to end the stalemate. 
 
 He is now completely isolated nationally and internationally as his allies and cronies desert him. His vice-president of two decades and cabinet ministers have all resigned, asking him to respect the democratic will of the Gambian people. And his army chief, General Ousman Badjie, a close ally, seems to be wavering as military intervention looms. “This is a political dispute. I am not going to involve my soldiers in a stupid fight. I love my men,” he was reported to have told AFP. 
 
 The UN, the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) no longer recognise Jammeh as president. Adama Barrow, who won last month’s presidential election, was sworn in on Thursday at the Gambia’s embassy in Dakar, Senegal, after Jammeh declared a state of emergency, banning all public gatherings in The Gambia. The inauguration was a historic moment for the long-suffering Gambian people. It symbolised the end of a dark chapter in the country’s history. Gambians have endured one of the world’s most brutal dictators for 22 years. And with Barrow at the helm they hope for a new Gambia free of fear and terror. 
 
 New Gambian leader Adama Barrow sworn in at ceremony in Senegal Read more 
 
 But Jammeh, like most dictators, gives greater weight to his ego and grandeur over national peace and harmony. He is willing to use every means, including violence, to shore up his dying regime. We are, unfortunately, heading for a confrontation. Jammeh had convinced himself that he’d rule for life. The thought of him being sidelined or, worse, the possibility of prosecution for his many crimes has seen him make a last stand. 
 
 As Ecowas ratchets up the military pressure on Jammeh, Gambians face an uncertain future, filled with fear and trepidation. Soldiers from Ecowas countries are amassing at the Senegal border ready to dislodge him should the UN security council give the go ahead. Gambians and foreigners alike have fled the country, fearing the worst. 
 
 The military incursion is welcomed by many of the populace. Gambians are united by their hatred of a brutal dictator who has ruled over them with an iron fist. They are sick and tired of his shenanigans and would be happy to see the back of him. The west African forces led by Senegal would receive heroes’ welcome from Gambians. It’s their last hope to salvage their democratic mandate. 
 
 The Gambian armed forces, said to number some 2,500 soldiers, are outmanned and out-equipped by the Ecowas forces. Many may decide to surrender rather than resist the invading forces. Jammeh’s last stand will depend on a group of diehard loyalists who may opt to fight to defend him. 
 
 But this doesn’t bode well for the poverty-stricken nation where tourism accounts for 40% of the annual economic output. Brits made up 60% of the estimated 200,000 annual tourists, and the UK Foreign Office had warned against all but essential travel to country. Prolonged uncertainty would wreck the burgeoning tourist industry. 
 
 Jammeh is a throwback to the African strongmen of the past. His personality cult is a blend of ruthlessness and anticolonial rhetoric. He’s one of the last dictators in a region where the people are now demanding democracy and good governance. Dictatorship and military coups are no longer tolerable in a once volatile west Africa. Ecowas and the AU have taken a firm stand against them. 
 
 Elections are the default in allocating power, and they are becoming free and fair. Ruling parties are frequently ousted in the polls. Opposition parties in Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast have all successfully defeated incumbents in their respective countries. The Gambia, a country that has never had a change of government through an election, is about to join this renaissance. Since independence in 1965, the Gambia had only had two presidents – but that’s about to change.
– Kim Jong Un is a terrible, murderous despot, but he's not the only Dr. Evil on the block. Ozy runs through some of the equally ruthless dictators who you've likely never heard of: Alexander Lukashenko: The Belarusian president Condi Rice once called "Europe's last dictator" just got a fifth term in an election that was basically uncontested, reports the AP. Among his charms: A penchant for sending his foes to labor camps, or just making them disappear. King Mswati III: Swaziland's ruler presides over Africa's lone remaining absolute monarchy, and uses his power to marry young girls (15 wives to date) while not doing much in the way of actual ruling (unemployment sits at 23%). Isaias Afwerki: The Eritrean president of 24 years is into torture, imprisoning political foes, and indefinite compulsory military service. Yahya Jammeh: Gambia's president seized power in 1994, and has since fired at peaceful crowds of protesters, tossed suspected witches in jail, and once demanded all gay people leave within 24 hours on threat of being beheaded. For the full list, which includes a mild-mannered 79-year-old who enforces state-sanctioned abductions, head over to Ozy.