Deportation of the Crimean Tatars. A painting by Crimean Tatar artist Rustem Eminov. The entire population of Crimean Tatars who survived the German occupation of the peninsula (over 200 000) was deported by Stalin just in two days. In packed and locked railroad cattle cars and with few provisions and water, they were sent on an arduous journey to remote rural locations in Central Asia and Siberia. Over 46 percent of the Crimean Tatar people perished during the trip and in the first 2 years of the exile due to the harsh conditions. A year after the deportation when the WW2 ended, demobilized Crimean Tatar soldiers were sent from the Soviet Army directly into exile too.
On the 78th anniversary of Stalin’s deportation of the Crimean Tatars, the Ukrainian foreign ministry called on the international community to recognize that that action was a genocide and also to support Ukraine’s efforts to reverse Putin’s Anschluss of their homeland in 2014 and the repressions the occupiers continue to inflict on the Crimean Tatars.
Related: Time for world to recognize Stalin’s deportation of Crimean Tatars as genocide – activist
In passionate language, the ministry declared that “the Russian Federation must bear international-legal responsibility for all the crimes against humanity on the territory of Ukraine including in Crimea.”
That declaration was followed by a statement by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who noted that when the Crimean Tatars were deported, neither they nor others thought they would be able to return and yet they have done so. Now, Moscow has again occupied their lands and many do not expect that to be reversed.
But despite that, the Ukrainian leader said, Ukraine has withstood the onslaught from Russia. And now we are fighting “to bring life back to every corner of our homeland,” again including Crimea, the homeland of the Crimean Tatars. Let everyone know that “we shall return,” and the Crimean Tatars will get the justice they deserve.
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Tags: 1944 deportation, Crimea, Crimean Tatars, Crimes of the Russian occupation regime in Crimea, Crimes of the Soviet communist regime
