ORIGINAL: FAA
This is crucial on low population planets where you can’t just explain that 100k people simply disappeared in a huge encirclement, when your own regime only has 1 million. That’s a huge percentage of world’s population gone without any explanation. We’re talking about numbers exceeding some of the worst genocides in our history.
Look at this from different angle - they aren't died. They just gone into hiding and refusing to fuel your warmachine with their own bodies. Your regime is definitely lack people to send on search for them so for your leader they're just "gone".